I am speaking at NEBytes next week on VS/TFS2012 with Andy Westgarth, check the NEBytes site for details

At TechEd USA 2012 in the keynote and the ALM session it was announced that you no longer need an invite code to access the Azure hosted TFSPreview.com, it is now open to all. There are no final details as yet over the pricing when it goes fully to production but they did say there will be some form of free offering going forward. We will have to wait for more details on that front. ...

Whilst preparing the demos for my [TFS 2012 ALM session on Wednesday (still places available of you are in the Yorkshire area)](http://www.blackmarble.co.uk/events.aspx?event=How to Plan your Application Lifecycle Implementation with TFS11), I got the following error whey trying to add a new solution of sample code to TFS Access to the path ‘C:ProgramDataMicrosoft Team Foundation Local Workspaces43519e4-72cf-4cd0-a711-f4bb8b817f30TYPHOON;432cfb95-26d6-4a68-af26-b102c950a90dproperties.tf1’ is denied. It seems that the ..4535… folder had been created when I was running VS2012 using ‘run as administrator’. When I tried to browse it I was prompted for UAC elevated privileges. So if I was not running VS2012 as administrator I could not access the folder. For me the solution was to just delete the folder and let VS/TFS recreate it. I had no checked out files so it did not matter. Once done all was OK ...

I posted recently on running Win8 RP on my Lenovo W520, well a few days on it is still working fine. I have adopted by usual practice of installing as few hardware vendor drivers/tool as possible, as I tend to find these make matters worse most of the time. However, I as expected I could not only rely on just what came with Windows 8. On installing Windows the only device not discovered was the single device ‘Intel Chipset’, this needed the Intel Chipset Support driver I noticed today that when on my docking station my speakers did not work. I expected to have to install the Lenovo provided audio drivers, but a check for ‘updated drivers’ on the audio device in device manager got the right ones from Windows Update. The fingerprint reader just work had to do nothing other than enrol my fingerprint in Control Panel –> Biometics, and unlike with the Lenovo version of the UI I had on Windows 7, I can now user a fingerprint to elevate my privileges via UAC. One issue seem to be the green LED by the reader does not light up, but as it works I can live with that. I will report more things I need to do as I find them. ...

I have been working on one of our build boxes today restructuring our Surface solutions to make better of Nuget. This involved upgraded the Azure SDK on the build box to the new June release, which needed a reboot halfway through the process. After the reboot and tried a new build I got the error TF215097: An error occurred while initializing a build for build definition SurfaceRetailApplication.Main CI: Could not load file or assembly ‘System.Drawing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a’ or one of its dependencies. The located assembly’s manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040) ...

This years DDD North is to be held at Bradford University on 13th October, keep an eye open for the call for speakers

I tried to install the Windows 8 CP on my Lenovo W520 with no success as I posted about in the past.I was only able to install Windows 8 CP only if I disabled the Nvidia graphics card and just used the integrated Intel controller. This was of no real use as I need dual monitors. With the release of Windows 8 RP I though I would try again. The first attempt failed with the same problem, it hung detecting devices. I check the BIOS and noticed I was set to discrete only (the Nvidia setting). I knew the RP should work on the W520 as other at the office have got it working. So I changed the BIOS to Nvidia Optimus (the auto swap system between Intel and Nivdia) and tried again – and it worked. So this is the first post from Windows 8. ...

I am really proud to have been involved in the team of ALM Rangers who have SIMultaneous-SHIPped best practice guidance with Visual Studio 11 RC, which became available last night**.** I am sure anyone working with Visual Studio and TFS will find the guidance of value, I have certainly learned a lot whilst helping produce the material. It has been a great experience working with a great crowd of people both inside and outside of Microsoft. ...

Last night I attended the first meeting of the new .NET user group Leeds Sharp. This is a flavour of user group we don’t have in Leeds; we have SQL, Ruby, Agile user groups, the list goes on, but not a dedicated .NET one. So hopefully this .NET usergroup will take off. Especially as Microsoft conveniently decided to launch Windows 8 Release Preview and Visual Studio 11 RC during our opening session, so there are loads of new subjects to talk about. ...

Whilst preparing for the Black Marble Windows 8 event tomorrow (still places available for this free event) I hit problem with VS11Beta and Metro projects. I was sorting out a demonstration of remote debugging, I had a Samsung tablet PC running WIn8CP and intended to use a WIn8Server CP running inside a VirtualBox VM on Windows 7 PC. I installed VS11 Ultimate 11 Beta on both devices On the Win8 Tablet I loaded the VS11 remote debugger monitor ...