blog.allanglen.com

We recently attempted to get a Visual Studio 2010 web project set up for automatic deployment using Team Foundation Server 2010. There are plenty of blog posts outlining the setup procedure when deploying to IIS 7 but there is minimal documentation on deploying to IIS 6.

After digging we ended up with the following MSBuild parameters which worked on our dev laptops using msbuild.exe but didn’t work on our Team Build server:

/p:DeployOnBuild=true
/p:DeployTarget=MSDeployPublish
/p:MSDeployPublishMethod=RemoteAgent
/p:DeployIisAppPath="Default Web Site/(directory>)"
/p:MsDeployServiceUrl="http://(webserver)/msdeployagentservice"
/p:username=****
/p:password=****

When running a Team Build, the build failed with the following error:

C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\
Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets (1657): The "MapUriToIisWebServer" task failed unexpectedly. 
System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x80005000): Unknown error (0x80005000) 
at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind(Boolean throwIfFail)
at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind()
at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.get_IsContainer()
at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntries.CheckIsContainer()
at System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntries.Find(String name, String schemaClassName)    
at Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.MapUriToIisWebServer.get_IisMajorVersion()
at Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.MapUriToIisWebServer.Execute()
at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskExecutionHost.Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.ITaskExecutionHost.Execute()
at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskBuilder.ExecuteInstantiatedTask(ITaskExecutionHost taskExecutionHost, 
TaskLoggingContext taskLoggingContext, TaskHost taskHost, ItemBucket bucket, 
TaskExecutionMode howToExecuteTask, Boolean& taskResult)

When we ran msbuild.exe on the project locally using the same parameters we noticed the following warning in the output (in bright yellow):

Validating Web Deploy package/publish related properties... 
C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(3436,5): warning : Setting both property values of DeployAsIisApp and IncludeIisSettingsOnPublish to true is not recommended, as IncludeIisSettingsOnPublish is a superset of DeployAsIisApp [(projectfile).csproj]

Our solution for getting the deployment working with IIS 6 was simply to append the following additional MS Build parameter:

/p:IncludeIisSettingsOnPublish=false

Microsoft has just released a new Scrum process template (beta) for Team Foundation Server 2010.

From the Visual Studio Gallery:

Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 is a new process template from Microsoft built for Scrum teams.   Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for project management and agile software development.  This template includes work items and reports to help your Scrum team be successful.   Click here more information and a detailed FAQ.

This template includes:

• Work Item Types
  • Product Backlog Item
  • Bug
  • Task
  • Impediment
  • Test Case
  • Sprint
• Reports
  • Release Burndown
  • Velocity
  • Sprint Burndown
• SharePoint Project Portal

More details on the new Scrum process template from bharry.

Steve Lange recently posted his thoughts on Team Foundation Server project collections in which he provides an overview of the pros and cons of using project collections in TFS.

More information about organizing a TFS server with project collections is available on MSDN.

This position has been filled.

My development team is currently looking for a talented Senior GIS Developer to join us in building innovative solutions for the Geoweb.

We are looking for someone that has strong “Web 2.0″ development experience including strong JavaScript skills (Dojo and/or jQuery experience is a big plus).

Our team is skilled in the latest technologies including ArcGIS Server, the ArcGIS Server JavaScript API, Dojo, ASP.NET MVC, WCF (SOAP and RESTful JSON services), Entity Framework and the Visual Studio Team System.

Our team develops software using the Scrum software development framework, allowing us to be agile and to work closely with our customers.

We value high quality software and we use continuous integration (automated builds, automated unit testing, static code analysis and automated test deployments) to allow us to develop software rapidly.

We now have a team room (new last year!) that provides an excellent team collaboration space.

If you think you have the skills and you are interested in shaping the future of Denver’s GIS program apply online at http://www.denvergov.org/jobs.

When running a build on a Team Foundation Build Server 2008 I was unable to get unit test results to be reported back to TFS.  The following entry was found in the build log (where <projectname> is the name of the TFS project):

Build “vstfs:///Build/Build/830″ cannot be found under team project “<projectname>”.

The problem is a result of a fix in TFS 2008 SP1. Before SP1, $(BuildNumber) was used to report test results back to TFS.  This was a problem since the build number was not always guaranteed to be unique.  In SP1 this was fixed by using $(BuildUri) instead.

This problem shows up if you are running TFS 2008 SP1 along with TFS Build 2008 (without SP1). The simple solution is to install TFS 2008 SP1 on the build server.

To complete the update just run the installer on the build server.  It will detect that TFS Build is installed and it will update it to SP1.

Scott Hanselman gave a good talk on web deployment with Visual Studio 2010 at the Mix10 conference last week and he recently posted some reference material on his blog.

I also discovered a talk by Vishal Joshi at PDC 2009 that covers some additional areas.

My team is currently using TFS build tasks (VS/TFS 2008) for web deployments (using xcopy) so we’re looking forward to the improvements in 2010.

Team Explorer 2005 now supports Team Foundation Server 2010 with a patch that was released today.

Download available here: Visual Studio Team System 2005 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010