Getting the correct path and name for a project to pass as an MSBuild argument in TFS Build

I have been sorting out some builds for use with Release Management that include Azure Cloud Solutions. To get the correct packages built by TFS I have followed the process in my past blog post. The problem was I kept getting the build error The target "Azure PackagesBlackMarble.Win8AppBuilder.AzureApi" does not exist in the project. The issue was I could not get the solution folder/project name right for the MSBUILD target parameter....

September 10, 2014 · 2 min · Richard Fennell

Deploying a Windows service with Release Management

recently needed to deploy a Windows service as part of a Release Management pipeline. In the past, our internal systems I have only need to deploy DB (via SSDT Dacpacs) and Websites (via MSDeploy), so a new experience. WIX Contents The first step to to create an MSI installer for the service. This was done using WIX, with all the fun that usually entails. The key part was a component to do the actual registration and starting of the service...

September 9, 2014 · 6 min · Richard Fennell

PowerShell Summit Europe 2014

I find I am spending more time with PowerShell these days, as we aim to automated more of our releases and specifically with DSC in PowerShell 4, as I am sure many of us are Give that fact, the PowerShell Summit Europe 2014 at the end of the month looks interesting. I only found out about it too late and I have diary clashes but might be of interest to some of you....

September 8, 2014 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Got around to updating my Nokia 820 to WP81 Update 1

I had been suffering with the 0x80188308 error when I tried to update my Nokia 820 to the WP81 Update 1 because I had the developer preview installed. I had been putting off what appeared to be the only solution of doing a reset as discussed in the forums as it seem a bit drastic, thought I would wait for Microsoft to sort out the process. I got bored waiting.....

September 3, 2014 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Getting ‘… is not a valid URL’ when using Git TF Clone

I have been attempting to use the Git TF technique to migrate some content between TFS servers. I needed to move a folder structure that contains spaces in folder names from a TPC that also contains spaces in its name. So I thought my command line would be git tf clone “http://tfsserver1:8080/tfs/My Tpc” “$/My Folder”’ oldrepo --deep But this gave the error git-tf: “http://tfsserver1:8080/tfs/My Tpc” is not a valid URL At first I suspected it was the quotes I was using, as I had had problems here before, but swapping from ‘ to “ made no difference....

September 2, 2014 · 1 min · Richard Fennell