Break it, fix it

It is possible that you encounter the following error when trying to create a new Web Application in VS 2013: Could not add all required packages to the project. The following packages failed to install from ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET Web Stack 5\Packages’: jQuery.1.10.2 : Failed to initialize the PowerShell host. If your PowerShell execution policy setting is set to AllSigned, open the Package Manager Console to initialize the host first. Modernizr.2.6.2 : Failed to initialize the PowerShell host. If your PowerShell execution policy setting is set to AllSigned, open the Package Manager Console to initialize the host first. After some searching on the Internet, I thought it was related to the powershell execution policy. I tried modifying it with no success regarding the project creation. Then I started rolling-back all the changes I made to my installation since a few days. I uninstalled the last update to Web Essentials 2013 for Update 4 and it...

If you need to create reports for TFS, most of the time it is much easier to create them by copying an existing report. As I need to do this frequently, I decided to create a template to minimize the amount of work. Here is a link to the TFS report template.

When reviewing the job execution log, I noticed the [Incremental Analysis Database Sync] failed several times during the last few days, but not every time. The strange part was that the error was TF255040 meaning the SSRS components where not installed. It puzzled me at first because the components are installed or they are not, but they cannot be occasionally not installed. Then I remember a fail-over application tier had been installed a few months earlier without ever being used. It seems TFS suddenly decided to load-balance some jobs to the fail-over application tier. After a quick look it appeared that the SSRS components were not installed on the fail-over app-tier. Installing them seems to have resolved the issue.

When deploying an ASDatabase file using the Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe tool, you might get a cryptic "OLE DB error: OLE DB or ODBC error" message. The details message includes there was a problem connecting to one of the data sources. I scratched my head for quite some time until I had a better look at the actual connection string. The server name was correct as well as the database name and security configuration. For example: Provider=SQLNCLI11.1;Data Source=.;Integrated Security=SSPI;Initial Catalog=MyDatabase_Warehouse At first I didn't notice the "Provider" part, but then I decided to strip the connection string to the bare minimum, and try again. Data Source=.;Integrated Security=SSPI;Initial Catalog=MyDatabase_Warehouse Surprisingly, it worked right away. But I honestly have no idea why it does not work if you specify the provider. Maybe it is related to differences with the SQL client version installed on the machine that gener...

Here is a little trick to download the latest version of a source control folder from TFS. The idea is to use the Web Access API to retrieve the data. Basically, you will get a Zip containing the HEAD version of the specified source control folder. Here is the URL you have to use : http:// tfs-server : port /tfs/ Collection / TeamProject /Team /_api/_versioncontrol/itemContentZipped?repositoryId=&path= url-encoded-source-control-path The yellow parameters are mandatory, the green ones can be omitted. Replace the parameters as described: tfs-server is the TFS server hostname port is the TFS port (usually 8080) Collection is the name of your team project collection TeamProject is the name of your team project Team is the name of the team url-encoded-source-control-path is the URL encoded source control path (for example, $/Project1/Main/Sources/Folder/SubFolder becomes %24%2FProject1%2FMain%2FSources%2FFolder%2FSubFolder The main benefit of this URL is that it allo...

If you plan on upgrading your Release Management installation from update 1 to update 2, here is a bit of advice: Do not. I tried in our internal installation, and everything broke down. The worst part was the TFS integration. It was no longer possible to link a TFS build definition to a release template, rendering them completely useless. And since RM for TFS is all about release template, the whole release infrastructure was absolutely blocked. I will wait for the next update and hope Microsoft will fix these issues. As a side note, deploying a brand new Update 2 installation did not fix the TFS issues, so apparently it is not related to the upgrade process. EDIT (2014-08-22): I have upgraded to Update 3 without problem. It was probably a bug corrected in the last version. 

If you ever wondered if it is possible to completely remove an application tier from the TFS Administration Console , here is an answer for you. Yes, but it is tricky and may result in a broken TFS installation. It involves messing with the catalog in the TFS_Configuration database. As a disclaimer, this method is absolutely not supported. Not by me, not by my company, not by Microsoft. Use at your own risks. So if you decide to reproduce the steps I am going to describe, please BACK UP your TFS installation (especially the Tfs_Configuration database). Now, a little bit of context before starting, TFS uses a set of tables known as the catalog to keep track of the different pieces of your installation. It contains a lot of things including the databases, the servers, the web applications, etc. Whenever you had a new piece to the installation (app tier, reporting tier, etc.) it goes into the catalog. Our problem is that for the moment there is no way to tell when you completely ...