Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Power Tools is a set of enhancements, tools and command-line utilities that improve the Team Foundation Server user experience. For an overview of what's new in this release, see New in this Release. This release supports Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server. For Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, see Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Power Tools. Team Foundation Server Power Tools includes the following tools: .gif)
New in this Release- Find in Source Control tool is an addition to the Team Explorer menu that provides the ability to locate files and folders in source control by the item’s status or with a wildcard expression.
- Open a selected folder in Windows Explorer straight from Team Explorer. This feature allows you to jump straight to the mapped folder location from within Source Control Explorer.
- Quick Label feature that allows labels to be easily applied to a given selection of files and folders in the Source Control Explorer.
- Build Notification tool that runs in the Windows task bar notification area monitoring the status of the build definitions you have specified. It can be configured to show notifications when builds are queued, started, or completed for multiple build definitions spanning multiple Team Foundation Servers.
- Additional TFPT.EXE commands for configuring Team Explorer connection settings (tweakui) and for destroying Work Items and Work Items Type Definitions (destroyWI, destroyWITD).
- Updates to the TFS Best Practices Analyzer for use with a Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server deployment.
- The Process Template Editor is updated for use with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server. It also has several improvements, including: the ability to launch standalone w/o a Visual Studio installation, performance improvements, improved discoverability and bug fixes.
- Bug fixes and removal of Power Tools that are now included within Team Foundation Server:
- Annotate and Treedif are now included in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Explorer; however, Annotate remains is still available in the command-line tool (TFPT.EXE).
- TestToolsTask is included in Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server as part of Team Foundation Build.
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Team Foundation Server Power Tool CommandsTeam Foundation Server Power Tool (tfpt.exe) is a command-line tool. To use these commands, start tfpt.exe at the Command Prompt. Some of the commands will display a graphical user interface when used. Team Foundation Server Power Tool includes the following commands: Unshelve Command
Use the unshelve command to unshelve and merge the changes in the workspace. Rollback Command
Use the rollback command to roll back changes that have already been committed to Team Foundation Server. Online Command
Use the online command to create pending edits on writable files that do not have pending edits. GetCS Command
Use the GetCS (Get Changeset) command to get the changes in a particular changeset. UU Command
Use the UU (Undo Unchanged) command to undo unchanged files, including adds, edits, and deletes. Annotate Command
Use the annotate command to download all versions of the specified files and show information about when and who changed each line in the file. Review Command
Use the review command to optimize the code review process to avoid checking in or shelving. History Command
Use the history command to display the revision history for one or more files and folders. The /followbranches option returns the history of the file branch’s ancestors. Workitem Command
Use the workitem command to create, update, or view work items. Query Command
Use the query command to run a work item query and display the results. If you do not provide a specific query, all the active work items assigned to you are displayed. Treeclean Command
Use the treeclean command to view and optionally delete files that are not under source control in the current directory and all subdirectories. This command is useful when you want to remove temporary files from your local workspace, such as files created by the compiler. DestroyWI Command
Use the destroywi command to destroy one or more work items. Currently, work items can only be deleted. Destroying a work item means the work item is physically deleted and cannot be restored. DestroyWITD Command
Use the destroywitd command to destroy a work item type. Currently, work item types can only be deleted. Destroying a work item type means that work items of that type are physically deleted and cannot be restored. TweakUI Command
Use the tweakUI command to modify Team Explorer client connection values. This command enables you set various connection settings. In addition, this command enables you to define the client certificate needed to connect to a Team Foundation Server that has been configured to require client-side certificates. >Return to Top of Page Build NotificationThe Build Notification tool runs in the Windows task bar’s notification area to monitor the status of the build definitions you have specified. You can configure it to show notifications when builds are queued, started, or completed for multiple build definitions spanning multiple Team Foundation Servers. >Return to Top of Page Process Template EditorTeam Foundation Server Power Tools installs Visual Studio Team System Process Editor, which is a process template editor for editing Team Foundation Server process templates inside the Visual Studio IDE. The installation media includes separate documentation for the Visual Studio Team System Process Editor, which includes a User Guide and a Readme file that includes known issues. Note The Team System Process Editor no longer requires the Domain-Specific Language Tools for Visual Studio 2005 Redistributable Components. >Return to Top of Page Check-In Policy PackTeam Foundation Server Power Tools also installs a set of check-in policies. The custom policies include: Custom Path Policy
Works with existing Team Foundation Server check-in policies. It provides a mechanism that lets you specify the source control path or paths upon which a particular policy acts. This initiates a scenario where you can enforce a different sets of rules for different source control folders. For example, one folder can have more stringent code analysis policy rules applied than another folder Forbidden Patterns Policy
Allows you to specify a file extension or a regular expression that you can use to keep certain file types from being checked in to source control. This policy is most useful for DLL-files, build artifacts, or automatically-generated Web site files that are generated automatically during development. Versioning these files is not appropriate since they are on demand and specific to the development environment. The Forbidden Patterns policy scans each of the file names on check-in. It determines if there is a match. If there is a match, the check-in is blocked. Changeset Comments Policy
The Changeset Comments policy allows you to verify that the Comments text box in the Check In dialog box is not empty. You cannot check in a file if the Comments text box is empty. Work Item Query Policy
The Work Item Query policy allows you to specify a team query to which the work item associated with a check-in must belong. If the results of the query do not include the work item associated with the check-in, check-in is blocked. >Return to Top of Page Team Foundation Server Best Practices AnalyzerThe Team Foundation Server Best Practices Analyzer (Team Foundation Server BPA) is a diagnostic tool that performs the following functions: - Gathers configuration information from a Team Foundation Server deployment
- Performs specific tests on the Team Foundation Server deployment
- Analyzes the collected information according to specific rules and reports the findings as information, warning, or error messages
- Provides links to articles to resolve warning and error messages
You can use the Team Foundation Server BPA in either a pre-installation or a production Team Foundation Server environment. You can use the Team Foundation Server BPA to perform the following tasks: - Proactively verify that the Team Foundation Server configuration is set according to recommended best practices
- Determine configurations that differ from default, recommended, or required settings
- Identify the source of problems in an unhealthy Team Foundation Server deployment
>Return to Top of Page Work Item TemplatesTeam Foundation Power Tools installs a Work Item Templates feature that supports the ability to create, apply, capture, and set default work item templates. This feature adds additional menu items to the Team Work Item Templates menu. You use work item templates to create or update work items. Work item templates automatically set field values. This feature conveniently reduces the number of steps to create or update work items. For example, you can create a task template that will set the area path, iteration path, and discipline whenever you use it to create or edit a task. >Return to Top of Page |