TFS Build Web.config Transformation

With Visual Studio, we are able to create different build configurations with the Configuration Manager. This allows us to create different web.config files for a particular build target like Stage, Prod. The idea behind this is that each target configuration contains the correct application settings...

Request a code review with Visual Studio 2012 Premium

Before any code is check-in, a developer can request a code review using Visual Studio. The steps for a code review request and response are as follows: Send a review request:  (developer) Do not check-in your code On Team Explorer Home, click on Request Code Review o   Enter the name of the reviewer o   Enter the following information §  Task name §  Area...

TFS – How to Record Support Hours on an Iteration

In project management, there is always a need to record how much work is being done to troubleshoot and/or identify issues for a particular release.  To address this, we could set up a team project with the following settings: Area and Iteration Path: Create an area path specifically for support issues. For example, the area path could read the following: Area Path    Description...

Resolve MSB4064: The "Retries" parameter is not supported by the "Copy" task – Team Build

When building Visual Studio 2010 projects on TFS 2008, you may get this error: MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets(132,11): error MSB4064: The "Retries" parameter is not supported by the "Copy" task. Verify the parameter exists on the task, and it is a settable public instance property. MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets(130,5):...

Customize the Build Number in Team Build

If you have used TFS team build, you know that MSBuild creates a default label and build number/name with the following format: Build Definition Name_YYYYMMDD_# Where the # is an incremental number for the date. This format does not really provide any information about the version your are building. Nevertheless,  The build number can be customized using the BuildNumberOverrideTarget. There...

How to Deploy Files in Different Servers with Team Build

I use Team Build to automate the build and deployment of my projects.  In the build project, there are settings that allow us to configure the build directory and drop location of the files. The build directory is a path in the build machine, and this does not really change. The drop location is a path where you want the files to be copied after a successful build.  Depending on your development...