Introducing TFSPreview: Application Lifecycle Management in the Cloud!

At last week’s Build conference in Anaheim California, Microsoft unveiled TFSPreview.com. I was able to score access so I set up access to the server, updated Visual Studio 2010, and began playing around with the functionality. This post describes what I needed to do to get my workstation ready for ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) in the Cloud!

Step 0 – Obtain an Invitation Code

I am not sure about Microsoft’s plans or channels to provide more codes. Brian Harry’s blog is a good place to monitor for additional activation codes – this post in particular.

Step 1 – Create the Account

Start by browsing to tfspreview.com:

Click the Create Account button at the bottom of the page. This brings up the Account Signup page. Enter an identifier for your Server URL: This will create https://<YourIdentifier>.tfspreview.com. Enter your Invitation Code, read the Terms of Service, and check the “I Accept” checkbox agreeing to the terms. Then click the Sign Up button:

You may need to sign in to sign up – I did. I used my Windows Live ID. After that I had to wait while my account was provisioned. That’s it! When Step 1 is complete you will see a screen similar to the following:

Step 2 – Create a Team Project

Click the “create team project” link to begin. When the Create New Team Project window displays, enter the Team Project Name, an optional description, and select a Process Template from the dropdown. Here, I named my Team Project “AndyWeather”, added the description “Manages the http://andyweather.com applications, driven by the @AndyWeather weather station”, and selected the Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 2.0 – Preview 1 Process Template:

I had to wait some while the Team Project was being created – about the same amount of time it takes to create a new Team Project on my local server, so no big surprise there. I think the feedback message is cool:

That’s it for Step 2! Click Close.

Step 3 – Download Software

This took a while when I did it. I’m sure part of the reason was because I was battling a bunch of other early-adopter geeks on release day. My bad. Downloading the software is important because you simply cannot make a connection between Visual Studio 2010 and TFSPreview without it:

Clicking the Download Software link took me to a post from Martin Woodward:

Step 3.1 – Install Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1

The first thing I needed to do was install Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1.

Click the Download button. You can either click Save to download Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and then manually run it, or click Run to download it and start execution immediately. I clicked Run. Once the file downloaded and executed, I was presented with the following window:

Click Next. Read first, check if you agree, and check if you want to send stats back to Microsoft (anonymously):

Click Install:

Once complete, click Finish.

I saw nothing in the instructions that informed me I should reboot, but I needed to reboot at this point. I encourage you to do the same.

For me, installing VS 2010 SP1 was the most time-consuming step.

Step 3.2 – Install KB2581206

After rebooting, return to Martin’s blog and download and install KB2581206:

Installing the KB doesn’t take very long:

Click the Next button to execute the installation:

You must accept the license terms and it’s cool to send anonymous data back to Microsoft; they use it to improve their processes.

Conclusion

I like this idea a lot, and I’m testing it using more than just my AndyWeather project.

Next up is Using TFSPreview: Step 1, Connecting.

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