Update released to fix issue for TFS 2010 with SQL Enterprise Page Compression

Brian Harry has just posted on his blog about a bug in SQL page compression (found in SQL Enterprise) that can cause problems with TFS 2010 or TFS1(preview), previous version of TFS did not support page compression. So if you are using TFS and SQL Enterprise have a read and make sure the correct updates are in place.

February 2, 2012 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Have you tried switching it on and off again? Go on be aggressive!

We have been building ‘standard’ environments for our TFS Lab Management system. Environments that can be used for most of the projects we are involved in without too much extra setup e.g. a small domain controller VM and a Server VM with SQL and SharePoint. These environments have a series of snapshots so it can be used in a number of ways e.g if we just want SQL and IIS we just go back to a snapshot prior to SharePoint being installed. ...

January 31, 2012 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

More links from our SDL event

If you want to hear a bit more detail on some of the common security issues we discussed at yesterdays SDL event why not listen to Troy Hunt Secures ASP.NET recent show on .NET Rocks or download his PDF ‘OWASP Top 10 for .NET developers’

January 27, 2012 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Links from our SDL event today

Thanks to everyone who attended our SDL event today. Here are a few links to information we mentioned Microsoft SDK home page, full of downloads, links and training videos TFS Build extensions for CAT.NET, showing how to add SDL validation to a TFS build And there are selection of links to books on SDL on my blog’s reading list page

January 26, 2012 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

New 1.3.0.0 release of the Community TFS Build Extensions for TFS 2010

A new 1.3.0.0 release of the Community TFS Build Extensions has been published today. This contains some fixes and two new activities SPDisposeChecker – checks for SharePoint best practice CatNetScan – checks for common security issues

January 25, 2012 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Black Marble launches new series of free online event

For many years Black Marble has run free events on a wide range of technologies. Originally we only ran these locally in Yorkshire, but as time progressed we have run them across the UK and Eire. They are a great way to help your staff whether technical or managerial get up to speed with new developments in our industry. For 2012 we have decided to try running some events online. The format for these events will be a short 30 minute interactive sessions where you will have the chance to see a short presentation and/or demonstration on a technology followed by a Q&A session with the presenter. ...

January 19, 2012 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

TF266026 error when a workflow will not start in a lab environment

A common cause of the TF266026 error is because when the build agent tries to start (it is the build agent that runs the workflows in Lab Management) it cannot access the custom assemblies folder as defined for its parent build controller. Obviously this problem only occurs if you have set a custom assemblies path for parent build controller. The reason for the error is because the agent is running as the Lab Management service account, in my case tfs2010lab, as defined for the TPC in the TFS Administration Console. This account by default has no rights to the source folder assigned for the custom assemblies. This is not usually an issue until it needs to access source control to load custom assemblies (which actually it probably does not ever use as it is not building code!). ...

January 18, 2012 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

‘Showing a modal dialog box or form when the application is not running in UserInteractive mode’ error upgraded to TFS build extensions 1.2.0.0

Whilst upgrading a TFS 2010 build today to the new 1.2 release of the Community TFS Build Extensions we hit an issue. All seemed to go OK until the build tried to use the StyleCop activity, which failed with the error Showing a modal dialog box or form when the application is not running in UserInteractive mode is not a valid operation. Specify the ServiceNotification or DefaultDesktopOnly style to display a notification from a service application. ...

January 17, 2012 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

Confused over the workflow to get an environment setup in TFS Lab Management?

It can be a bit confusing to get work out which tools to use at which stages required to get a lab environment up and running in TFS. Here is a basic workflow showing what you need to do in System Center Virtual Machine Manager prior to starting in MTM Lab Center Note: if you want to copy environments between TFS Team project Collections have a look at this post ...

January 17, 2012 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

TF260073 incompatible architecture error when trying to deploy an environment in Lab Manager

I got a TF260073, incompatible architecture error when trying to deploy a new virtual lab environment using a newly created VM and template. I found the fix in a forum post. The issue was that when I had build the VMs, I had installed the Lab Management agents using a VMprep DVD ISO and mounted it using ‘share image instead of copying it’ option. This as the name implies means the ISO is mount from a share not copied to the server running the VM, this save time and disk resources. When I had stored my VM into the SCVMM Library I had left this option selected i.e the VMPrep.iso mounted. All I had to do to fix this issue was open the settings of the VM stored in the SCVMM Library and dismount the ISO, as shown below ...

January 17, 2012 · 1 min · Richard Fennell