Ed Squared

User Display Name Changes and New Attribute for Work Item Type Definitions in TFS 2010

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:26:38 GMT

If you’ve had the responsibility of administering a TFS 2005 or TFS 2008 server you may have run in the “Display Name” problem before. In March 2007, the TFS Work Item Tracking team put a great post together about what’s exactly going on and it’s available here: http://blogs.msdn.com/teams_wit_tools/archive/2007/03/15/handling-display-name-changes-in-team-foundation-server.aspx

Basically, in TFS work item types, you can specify a field to hold the name of a user like in the Assigned To field. The value that gets stored is basically just a string value of the person’s Display Name in Active Directory. Not so bad except it’s not a strongly-typed object of a user but is just a string. The problem comes when the user’s display name gets changed in Active Directory like when an employee gets married and take’s their spouse’s last name. This causes a problem because all of the work items are still assigned to “Jane Doe” instead of “Jane NewLastName". Even worse, “Jane Doe” is not even a valid user any longer so the work item becomes in an invalid state. It’s kind of a maintenance nightmare.

Background: Every hour an Active Directory synchronization job gets queued up and processes changes to Active Directory like new users, group membership changes, etc. TFS keeps a cache of AD locally to help with operations across several subsystems. For users, it caches certain information like the primary e-mail address, display name, domain/user name, SID, distinguished name, etc.

Thankfully there was something that helped us out available in the TFS Power Tools release called “TFS Users.” You had to know about the display name change so working closely with your IT department was important. Thankfully, it looks like TFS 2010 has added some abilities to notice those display name changes and proactively help you out within your system. One of those changes is a new attribute in your work item type definitions that tells TFS which fields to automatically update. I’ve bolded and underlined all of the changes from the previous default definition of the MSF Agile Bug.


            <
            FIELD 
            name
            ="Assigned
To" refname="System.AssignedTo" type="String" syncnamechanges="true"reportable="dimension">
<VALIDUSER />
<HELPTEXT>The
person currently working on this bug</HELPTEXT>
</FIELD>
<FIELD name="Activated
By" refname="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ActivatedBy" type="String" syncnamechanges="true"reportable="dimension">
<WHENNOTCHANGED field="System.State"> <ALLOWEXISTINGVALUE /> <READONLY />
</WHENNOTCHANGED>
</FIELD>
<FIELD name="Changed
By" refname="System.ChangedBy" type="String" syncnamechanges="true"reportable="dimension"> <ALLOWEXISTINGVALUE /> <VALIDUSER />
</FIELD>
<FIELD name="Closed
By" refname="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ClosedBy" type="String" syncnamechanges="true"reportable="dimension">
<WHENNOTCHANGED field="System.State"> <ALLOWEXISTINGVALUE /> <READONLY />
</WHENNOTCHANGED>
</FIELD>
<FIELD name="Created
By" refname="System.CreatedBy" type="String" syncnamechanges="true"reportable="dimension" />
<FIELD name="Authorized
As" refname="System.AuthorizedAs" type="String" syncnamechanges="true"/>
<FIELD name="Resolved
By" refname="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ResolvedBy" type="String" syncnamechanges="true"reportable="dimension">
<WHENNOTCHANGED field="System.State"> <ALLOWEXISTINGVALUE /> <READONLY />
</WHENNOTCHANGED>
</FIELD>

If you have custom process templates or you have modified the out of the box process templates, you’ll have to do some maintenance to your existing team projects to light up the new TFS 2010 features available including the ability to automatically sync the name changes from Active Directory. If you are using the MSF Agile template you will want to update the following fields:

Assigned To
Activated By
Changed By
Closed By
Created By
Authorized As
Resolved By

For all other process templates, you’ll want to update the work item types that have fields that hold display name values. There is actually some great information already available about this particular topic available in the MSDN Library: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd286562(VS.100).aspx

One of the other things we notice from the changes are the addition of the ALLOWEXISTINGVALUE rule to some of the fields. This rule allows a previously entered value to still be valid even if that value is no longer a valid value. In addition, there are also some state/transition rule changes for allowing the existing value. Be sure to do a diff against your current work item type definition and the new MSF Agile work item type definitions to find all of the new changes.

For more information about managing work item type fields in TFS, see this MSDN Library Article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd236909(VS.100).aspx

Ed Blankenship

TeamPrise Assets Purchased by Microsoft

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:57:26 GMT

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this suggestion from people: “Microsoft should just buy TeamPrise and make the Eclipse and non-Windows clients just part of the TFS product.”

That day is finally here. Microsoft has purchased the TeamPrise-related assets from SourceGear. More details about the acquisition announcement are available at Microsoft’s PressPass site and also the Pathways site for TeamPrise and Visual Studio.

Also, in addition to purchasing the TeamPrise assets, Microsoft has also hired a majority of the development team including, most notably, Martin Woodward who has been an absolutely fantastic part of the “Team System” MVP group. It will be really sad to see Martin leave the group (as of today) but something tells me that he won’t be hiding :) Congratulations to him and the entire team!

Now the one thing that i think people might be worried about will be what will happen to the future of the TeamPrise clients and will that development team be able to innovate as quickly as they had before? I’m pretty sure the same “mission” will be in place and the team will be able to more closely leverage the other team members and assets within the Team Foundation Server product team. As far as speed of innovation, that’s tough to tell. Most other Microsoft products have tons of release requirements that slow them down such as localization, security reviews, etc. All of which are great things but do end up slowing you down if you have to support those requirements. Who knows if the TeamPrise development team will have to support them? My guess is that if they’re going to be part of the “Visual Studio” product line that they will have the very similar if not the same requirements as the rest of the stack. We will definitely see… Another possible hang up is that Microsoft (specifically Developer Division) will have to learn how to sell & market a Java/non-Windows based product. I can only imagine there will be some growing pains.

As far as licensing, right now you’ll need to still purchase the TeamPrise clients and get support from TeamPrise directly. A Microsoft-branded “TeamPrise” client will become available with the 2010 release. If you own a current license of the TeamPrise 3.3 software it looks like you’ll be upgraded to the new version when it is released. Also, if you own a Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN license at the time you’ll get access to download the new clients from MSDN Subscriber Downloads. After the 2010 release, it looks like there will be a new SKU available to be able to purchase just the new clients that will also include a CAL for Team Foundation Server that will run somewhere around $799 retail.

I’m excited about the decision and it looks like both Martin and Brian Harry are as well. I’m excited to see the platform broaden and truly support teams who have heterogeneous development environments!

Ed Blankenship

Test Case Migration Tool for TFS 2010 and Excel

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:24:54 GMT

Looks like there is a new migration tool being made available that helps you with importing test cases into TFS 2010 which now has Test Case Management as one of it’s new features. It’s now available on CodePlex and works with the Beta 2 release. Here’s some of the features available:

Imports Test case information (along with Test Steps) present in Excel into TCM/TFS server – Note: This is ONE way migration only

Provides a wizard based UI to run the tool one file at a time

Provides a command line support to run the tool in a batch mode

Allows you to save your selections/configurations into a mappings file to be reused later

Default mapping file that works across both Agile based and CMMI based projects are shipped along with the tool

http://tcmimport.codeplex.com/

I believe some systems allow you to export your test cases into Excel (HP Quality Center?) so this might be a good migration option. You can also use the TFS 2010 SDK to build a custom migration utility that will import from another system without having to go through Excel at first. Take a look at it and see if it might be helpful for you!

Ed Blankenship

Survey for Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:59:15 GMT

Over the past two weeks, I’ve really been hitting VS & TFS 2010 Beta 2 pretty hard. I’ve found a few things and used Connect to report some suggestions & problems that I’ve found. The product teams have been very active about responding to each of them and it’s been a very pleasant experience.

It looks like the product team wants even more feedback from everyone so if you could head over to the 2010 Beta 2 Survey and give your feedback, I know it will be greatly appreciated. It’s pretty quick and easy with about 11 questions and about 3 optional free-fill questions that you can type longer responses in.

Ed Blankenship

What is Team Foundation Server and Why Would I Use It?

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:18:32 GMT

I get this question a lot. People often wonder what Team Foundation Server (TFS) is and why would you use it? I read a blog post earlier today from Jason Zander who has the best explanation of TFS that I know. Also, he hits the nail on the head about the “well, can’t I just integrate all these other systems together?” I love the analogy he uses (emphasis added:)

First let’s talk about “why TFS?” The goal of Team Foundation Server is to create a central repository with a set of tools that make it really easy to collaborate between roles. You could try to stitch together multiple disparate systems as follows:

In this case each system has its own storage, own set of identity for assets, own commands and tools. Getting this going is like trying to hook up a set of custom stereo components: you can pull it off but it’s going to be a lot of work and you are missing out on some stuff.

What I’d rather have is a system which can integrate these items together and then enable my default work flow through the system:

Even better, with TFS 2010 you get the opportunity to add even more pieces to the ALM puzzle under one roof:

A good Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) system has all of these systems integrated together and linked to provide you as much transparency, traceability, and metrics available about the relationships between the artifacts in those systems. TFS is the best system available today that has all of that built together.

Ed Blankenship

Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta Available for Download

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:01:01 GMT

If you missed the news on Monday, Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2 are available to download by both MSDN Subscribers and everyone else in the world! This is really huge! Beta 2 has already been a really solid release since I first downloaded and installed it. The performance of the new WPF-based IDE has been dramatically improved from earlier builds.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate (.ISO)

Visual Studio 2010 Premium (.ISO)

Visual Studio 2010 Professional (.ISO)

Visual Studio Extensibility

Visual Studio 2010 SDK (.EXE)

.NET Framework

.NET Framework 4 (redistributable .EXE)

.NET Framework 4 Client Profile (redistributable .EXE)

Team Foundation Server

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (.ISO)

Visual Studio Team Explorer (.ISO)

Test Products

Visual Studio Test Elements (.ISO)

Visual Studio Team Lab Management

Visual Studio Team Agents (.ISO)

Express

Visual Basic Express (.EXE)

Visual C++ Express (.EXE)

Visual C# Express (.EXE)

Visual Web Developer Express (.EXE)

Express Combo DVD (.ISO) (includes all four Express installs)

There was also a ton of news coming out ranging from Licensing and SKU changes, the launch data for the 2010 release (which is March 22, 2010,) what you get upgraded to if you have an active MSDN Subscription on a launch day, and a whole bunch of great things! I’m really excited about this 2010 release wave. There’s a ton of great stuff designed to make everyone’s life that much easier when they’re developing, testing, and building applications.

“Go-Live” License

One of the great things about the Beta 2 release is that Microsoft has announced that you can use Beta 2 in production environments and also to build production applications. This “go-live” license includes .NET 4.0, Visual Studio 2010, and Team Foundation Server 2010. Jeff Beehler blogged earlier about what “go-live” actually means so be sure to read through it closely. Beta 2 is a very solid Visual Studio and TFS build. However, there is always some risk with upgrading production environments using Beta software. Be sure you understand the risks before taking the plunge.

I’d suggest that if you are able to take the risk that you upgrade to both Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010 Beta 2 as soon as you can. Remember that even if you don’t want to run .NET 4 for your production applications, you can still use Visual Studio 2010 to edit solutions/projects that target .NET 3.5, .NET 3.0, and .NET 2.0!

If you’re not able to take the risk to “go-live” during the Beta 2 timeframe then I would definitely suggest that you begin you testing & evaluation process now using the Beta 2 build. You’re able to test out the upgrade process from your TFS 2008 databases and discover any possible hang-ups during the upgrade process. (I personally haven’t had any for the servers that I have upgraded but you never know!) By getting your planning & testing done now, you’re in a better position to upgrade when TFS 2010 is released at the beginning of the year. Another thing you could do to get ready is be sure that you’ve upgraded any prerequisites. For example, even while you are running TFS 2008 you can upgrade your SQL Server instance to 2008 and upgrade your Windows SharePoint Services install to WSS 3.0. Using SQL Server 2005 or WSS 2.0 is not supported in TFS 2010 so this will just make things a ton easier for you when it actually is time to upgrade.

Launch Date vs RTM

I mentioned about that the launch date was announced for March 22, 2010. However, launch doesn’t necessarily mean Release to Manufacturing (RTM.) Products usually RTM before launch day but there have been a few exceptions. For example, SQL Server 2008 RTM’d much later than it’s launch date :) Hopefully that never happens again. What’s great about RTM is that if you’re an active MSDN subscriber, you usually get access to download the final build shortly after RTM based on past releases of products. Launch day for Windows 7 is tomorrow but RTM was earlier this summer and MSDN Subscribers have had access since August 6, 2009. (This does not mean in any way that there will be that much lead time for the Visual Studio 2010 release… I’d say it’s probably very unlikely!)

There’s really a lot of news to process so I’ll be posting some articles next week that goes into detail about several of them. If there’s anything in particular that you’re not quite sure of, feel free to contact me or leave me a comment about something that needs more information. In the meantime, please do help out by making this the best Visual Studio release ever. If you find a bug or think a scenario could be improved (be reasonable) be sure to log it at the Microsoft Connect site.

Take care and have fun,

Ed Blankenship

Test Categories and Running a Subset of Tests in Team Foundation Server 2010

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:10:32 GMT

Disclaimer: I’m writing this at a time when only Beta 1 is available for Visual Studio Team System 2010 so the information may have changed by the time it has been released. I have included links to the relevant MSDN articles which should remain valid after release time so just double-check.

This small little additional feature is actually one that I have been looking forward to for a long time. In Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server 2010, you will now be able to limit your test runs to specific test categories with a new command-line option on MSTest.exe and therefore in Team Build 2010 which calls MSTest.exe automatically for you.

Back in the day… You would need to create test lists (.VSMDI files) in VSTS 2005 and VSTS 2008 to basically “categorize” your automated unit tests by putting them into different lists. One handy thing about them is that the lists could be hierarchical which helps out at build time. When you wanted to run a specific subset of tests either locally using MSTest.exe or in Team Build, you would just specify the .VSMDI file to use and then the test list you wanted to run. Not too bad, but it’s a pain to keep up with those test lists. Serious pain. However, the thing that I hated absolutely most about them is that you could only edit the .VSDMI files if you purchased Visual Studio Team Suite or the Tester Edition. So that means that if you have just the VSTS Developer Edition then you are pretty much out of luck. For most places that I have seen, it’s usually the developers maintaining those test list files not the testers.

For this reason I actually prefer and will be recommending the Test Container and Category approach going forward in 2010. Test Containers are essentially files that contain tests in them. For example, unit tests (and other compiled tests) are stored in .dll files and ordered tests are in .orderedtest files. I like this approach. In automated builds I just want to specify which files contain the tests that I want to run and then if I want to limit the test run to just a subset I can just list which categories to run.

A great example of this is what I call the “BVT” category. These are the tests that you have identified to be your “smoke” tests that make sure a build is okay. If these tests fail then you’ve probably got a bad build. (BVT = Build Verification Tests) So I would limit the test runs on any CI or even the new Gated Check-In builds to just those BVT tests. Quick & dirty verification is really all you need for those builds leaving a more extensive automated test pass to happen during the nightly or weekly build. If you’re not familiar with the new Gated Check-In feature in TFS 2010, check out Brian’s blog post or Patrick’s blog postfor more information. It’s a killer feature.

This does rely on one thing though… each “developer” of an automated test needs to make sure they add the correct attribute(s) to their test methods. You don’t have to keep up with maintaining the .VSDMI files any longer but you do have to make sure you mark each method appropriately.

You can even use test categories with the new types of automated tests available in 2010 like Coded UI Tests. It doesn’t just have to be unit tests.

How to Specify a Category in an Automated Test

This part is pretty easy. You just add as many TestCategory attributes to the test method as you need. Here’s an example in C# using multiple test categories for a test method called DebitTest:

[TestCategory("Nightly"), TestCategory("Weekly"), TestCategory("Monthly"), TestMethod()] public
void DebitTest() { }

Alternately, you can select a test in the Test View tool window and then set the category by using the Properties tool window in Visual Studio and it will add the appropriate attributes to the methods for you.

How to Specify which Categories to Run in an Automated Build with Team Build 2010

Okay… this part is easy too. :) Build definitions now have build properties that can be exposed to the end user in the Build Definition Details dialog or in the Queue Build dialog. This is handy because you could by default not set a filter to run under normal circumstances (triggered or default manual builds) or you can change it when manually queuing a build if you want that build to run differently. Either way it’s the same for setting the categories. If you’re using the default build process workflow that is available out of the box, then just scroll down through the property list until you reach the Testing section which includes a build property called Test Category. Leave it blank if you want to run all tests or specify the categories you’d like to limit it too:

According to the MSDN documentation for the Test Category switch, you can combine multiple categories in different combinations instead of just specifying one category. Very handy – here’s some examples:

/category:group1 runs tests in the test category "group1".

/category:"group1&group2" runs tests that are in both test categories "group1" and "group2." Tests that are only in one of the specified test categories will not be run.

/category:"group1|group2" runs tests that are in test category "group1" or "group2". Tests that are in both test categories will also be run.

/category:"group1&!group2" runs tests from the test category "group1" that are not in the test category "group2." A test that is in both test category "group1" and "group2" will not be run.

What I’m not sure about is whether you can specify test categories when using the old Upgrade Build Workflow template .xaml file… I’ll check on that and then update the blog post.

It’s worth noting that if you are going to use the test category method to limit test runs, you must use test containers.

Limiting Test Runs Based on Test Priorities

If you noticed in the screenshot above from Team Build, you can also limit your test run to tests that are in a specific priority range. How do you specify the range for your test methods? You can use the Properties window when selecting a test in the Test View tool window or you can add the Priority attribute manually to the test method. After that you just specify the range of priorities to use in the test run.

[TestCategory("Nightly"), TestCategory("Weekly"), TestCategory("Monthly")]
[TestMethod()] [Priority(1)] public
void DebitTest() { }

Additional Note: It appears that the product team is actually encouraging people to move away from the old .VSDMI approach in favor of categories. Check their note out:

Note

Test categories are recommended for use over the test lists functionality from earlier versions of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Test, unless you have to create a check-in policy which requires a test list. For more information about check-in policies, see How to: Add Check-In Policies.

Take care and happy testing,

Ed Blankenship

Workflow TFS Custom Work Item Control

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:39:58 GMT

Now this is really cool! There is a really cool visualization when using Team System Web Access that shows the workflow of the work item that I thought would be really cool if we could have in the Team Explorer client inside Visual Studio. Well thankfully, Michel Perfetti (author of Fissum) just released a custom work item control that does exactly what TSWA does…

Remember, you can have different work item form layouts based on what client it is going to be loaded in so you could specify a layout for “WinForms” that would be the only one that would load this custom control. Check out Neno’s blog post about this topic for more information.

Check it out on CodePlex: http://tfsworkflowcontrol.codeplex.com/

Ed Blankenship

Boosting the Cell Phone Signal in Your Home with zBoost

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:32:07 GMT

It’s been a little quiet around here for me because I’ve been in the process of moving to Charleston, SC. I think I’m settling in well and have a little more time off before I start my new Visual Studio Team System consulting job at Notion Solutions. So far Charleston and James Island has been really great. Lots of great stuff to do including restaurants, the beach, and lots of parks. As much as I love Texas, it’s really good to live in a costal city.

I just moved into my new home and if you’ve been following me on Twitter you’ll know that the only thing that has been tough in the new house is the cell phone reception and Wi-Fi signals inside. If you’ve ever had that problem, you know it can be a real headache. (If I haven’t called you back it’s probably because I don’t even know that you have called recently :) !) I really think they put metal mesh or steel plates in the walls and between the floors when they built this house!

I believe @willia4 says it best:

The hunt was on to solve this problem and a few friends had suggested a newly available product called zBoost that creates a cell zone inside your home. I was quite skeptical but after starting to look it seemed to be a realistic possibility. After visiting the local Radio Shack and not finding it, I decided to look online and found it on Amazon. A good thing about these products is that they also work with multiple phones & devices inside so you don’t have to worry about it only helping one device at a time.

Wireless Extenders YX510-PCS-CEL Dual-Band Cell Phone Signal Booster: Cell Phones & Service

I spent some time comparison shopping between buying direct and several online electronic shopping sites and noticed that Amazon had the best deal and about $100 off of retail. Be careful about which one you order since there are three different models. Two of the models only work with one set of frequencies but the model I chose is the “dual” frequency model that will work with both spectrums and nearly all the cell phone frequencies in the US. If you order the single-frequency models you’ll save about $100 on other sites but Amazon had the dual-frequency model for the same price as the single-frequency models!

Cell-Phone Frequencies

PCS 1900 MHz: Sprint and T-Mobile
CEL 800 MHz: AT&T and Verizon
For more information about the cell phone frequencies used in your area, check out: Wireless Advisor

Installation

So the one thing that you’ll notice immediately (and the only thing I didn’t like about it) is that there are a lot of requirements for the installation to get it working well.

To capture the best signal, place the Signal Antenna as high as possible and position it vertically, keeping it at least 2 feet away from any metal.
The location of the Signal Antenna should be at least 15 feet higher than the Base Unit Antenna. (If this is not possible, maximizing the horizontal separation between the two antennas is advised.)
If you have extra slack in the cable leftover, don’t let it be near the base unit. Find the middle point in the line and collect the slack there.
Put the base unit closer to the middle of the house and avoid putting it next to an external wall.
Before permanently fastening or bolting the antenna, be sure to check the signal strength in that spot using your cell phone and checking out how many bars you get. That’s the most you’ll be getting from the cell zone created around the base unit inside.
Be sure to use the dedicated coax cable that they provide in the box instead of using the existing coax cabling that may be already installed in your house. For one, the cable provided in the box is RG-6 coax instead of RG-59 coax which is most often used for the TV coax cabling installed in houses. RG-6 provides lower signal loss than RG-59. The other more important factor is that you need a dedicated run between the antenna and the base unit so that the signal is not being shared for other things as the TV coax cabling is used in a house.

Attempt #1

The first attempt was to attach the antenna to a rafter in the attic and then run the coax to the base station in one of the rooms upstairs. The initial installation check worked out well and the lights on the base unit ended up being happy. Cell phone reception upstairs was just great. As I started walking downstairs, I quickly noticed the signal drop very similar to what I had been seeing with my wireless router signal loss downstairs. I swear there must be some steel plates between the floors that is causing some problems.

This wasn’t going to work. At home, I end up spending most of my time downstairs in the living room, master bedroom, kitchen, dining room, etc.

Attempt #2

Honestly, just take this route. It’ll take some more time and possibly put you in some danger but just bite the bullet. You’ll definitely appreciate the result in the end!

I decided that the base station needed to go downstairs and probably in the living room where the signal needed to be the strongest since I spend the most time in that room. So the best solution available was to attach the Signal Antenna to the roof, run the coax cable down the side of the house and then up through the floor of the living room, and put the base unit in the living room closer to the middle of the house. Thankfully there was already a hole drilled through the living room floor so the cable was just run through it.

Bingo – the signal was amazing downstairs. Five bars in the living room and four bars everywhere else downstairs. Interestingly, going upstairs now there are three bars. I don’t know the explanation but I’m just really glad it is all working!

More Powerful Antennas Available

If you feel the need to turn the juice up, you definitely can with the optional accessories and better antennas available that help you expand the coverage zone to nearly 10,000 feet. They are available on the Wi-Ex site or through Amazon.

And before anyone thinks that I actually installed this, I’ll just stop now and thank my friends (specifically Nathan) for helping out. I’m not really the “handy” type of guy so it’s helpful to have friends who are :) So here’s to five cell phone bars in the living room now…

Take care,

Ed Blankenship

Technical Editor for New Silverlight 3 Book Released!

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:34:41 GMT

There’s a new book that I was able to contribute to as a Technical Editor that was released. Following the Silverlight 3 official RTW release, you might want to hop in quickly and start learning about all of the awesome new stuff available. I knew each of the authors personally and you’ll enjoy reading & working through all of the examples in the book. Have fun!

Silverlight 3 Programmer's Reference (9780470385401): J. Ambrose Little, Jason Beres, Grant Hinkson, Devin Rader, Joe Croney: Books

ISBN: 0470385405
ISBN-13: 9780470385401

Disclaimer: That’s my personal opinion. I don’t receive any royalties off of the book sales.

Ed Blankenship

PowerPoint Slide Deck for Real World TFS Sessions

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:56:36 GMT

Just wanted to take a few seconds to post the slide deck I’m using for my Real World TFS sessions. I’ll post a link to the recording of the MVP TV session earlier today when it’s made available!

Ed Blankenship

MVP TV with Ed Blankenship on July 15

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:30:09 GMT

Also really excited about doing my first ever MVP TV set up by the Microsoft MVP program. Hope to see you there! We have an extra thirty minutes at the end so be sure to bring your questions.

MVP TV: Real World TFS: Tips for a Successful Team System Implementation

Wednesday, July 15^th, 2009 | 9:00am – 10:30am (PDT, Redmond time) or 12:00pm – 1:30pm (EDT, New York City time)

Targeted: This Product Group Interaction is open to all Developer MVPs in all Technical Expertise and public audience.

So you’ve decided that Visual Studio Team System & Team Foundation Server is going to bring your organization added value (because it will :)) but what do you do now? Please join Ed Blankenship as he covers the 2.5 years of successful implementation of VSTS and the experience of that journey at Infragistics, the world’s leading maker of software development tools. The session intends to cover each phase of the implementation of all affected areas for a smooth adoption: Version Control, Builds, Work Item Tracking, global deployment, moving multiple teams, training, automated testing, migration from legacy systems, and integration with other systems and TFS. The goal will be to go through at a high-level of what it takes to make you successful by learning from the challenges and obstacles overcome. We’ll also look in the future with VSTS 2010 and see how strategic planning will help make a successful adoption of the new features in the upcoming 2010 release. The session is led by a Microsoft MVP (Team System) & Champ who has been in the trenches during the whole implementation.

Prerequisites: A healthy attitude in learning from other peoples challenges and a strong desire to make real change within your organization!

About Ed Blankenship: Ed is a Microsoft MVP, Microsoft Certified Application Developer, and works as the Release Engineering Manager at Infragistics, makers of the world's leading presentation layer tools and components. His expertise consists of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server. He is also a technical evangelist for Rich Client applications (primarily Windows Forms & Windows Presentation Foundation.) He has been a technical editor for several Silverlight books, an article author, and has spoken at various user groups, events, and conferences.

PJ Forgione has invited you to attend an online meeting using Live Meeting.
Join the meeting. (Link: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=NP5FQZ&role=attend&pw=A49410Y0D )
Audio Information
Computer Audio
To use computer audio, you need speakers and microphone, or a headset.
Telephone conferencing
Use the information below to connect:
Toll-free: +1 (866) 500-6738
Toll: +1 (203) 480-8000
Participant code: 5460396

Ed Blankenship

Speaking at NYC VSTS User Group on July 28

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:53:00 GMT

While I’m up in New Jersey working at the Infragistics headquarters office, I’m going to have the privilege of speaking at the New York City VSTS User Group on July 28, 2009 at 6:30 PM. Come see me if you’re in the area! Because of security concerns at the building, you do need to register ahead of time if you’re planning to attend.

Real World TFS: Tips for a Successful Team System Implementation

Description:
So you've decided that Visual Studio Team System & Team Foundation Server is going to bring your organization added value (because it will :)) but what do you do now? Please join Ed Blankenship as he covers the 2.5 years of successful implementation of VSTS and the experience of that journey at Infragistics, the world's leading maker of software development tools. The session intends to cover each phase of the implementation of all affected areas for a smooth adoption: Version Control, Builds, Work Item Tracking, global deployment, moving multiple teams, training, automated testing, migration from legacy systems, and integration with other systems and TFS. The goal will be to go through at a high-level of what it takes to make you successful by learning from the challenges and obstacles overcome. We'll also look in the future with VSTS 2010 and see how strategic planning will help make a successful adoption of the new features in the upcoming 2010 release. The session is led by a Microsoft MVP (Team System) & Champ who has been in the trenches during the whole implementation.

Presenter: Ed Blankenship

Bio:
Ed is a Microsoft MVP, Microsoft Certified Application Developer, and works as the Release Engineering Manager at Infragistics, makers of the world's leading presentation layer tools and components. His expertise includes Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server. He is also a technical evangelist for Rich Client applications (primarily Windows Forms & Windows Presentation Foundation.) He has been a technical editor for several Silverlight books, an article author, and has spoken at various user groups, events, radio shows, and conferences.

Date/Time: 07-28-2009 6:30 - 8:00 PM

Location: Microsoft Offices in NYC at 1290 Avenue of Americas, 6th Floor

Click here to Register

Ed Blankenship

Going Down Under – New Opportunity with Readify

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:15:00 GMT

Dear Reader,

I have decided to accept a Senior ALM Consultant position with the premier Australian consulting company, Readify.

It’s always a tough decision to move on from a company you’ve really enjoyed being at. I’ve really enjoyed the work that I have had the opportunity to do at Infragistics. There are so many really great people at Infragistics that I truly will miss working with and hope to see in the future. Some of my really good personal friends have been fellow colleagues at Infragistics which just shows you the type of culture that we have. I’ve had an amazing team that I’ve worked with as the Release Engineering Manager and they have been truly able to make a positive change for the organization. They’ve always been there to help make miracles and put in those really really long hours at release crunch time. So really, I need to tip my hat to each of them for just being awesome: Brian, Geoff, Kareen, and Jason.

I’m really excited about this new opportunity. I never would have thought in my wildest dreams that I’d be living abroad but the idea grew more and more on me as this opportunity came up. I hear Australia is a beautiful country with an amazing culture. I’m not currently planning for this to be a permanent move whatsoever but everyone I talk to about it says that I’m not going to want to come back! :)

I’ve heard about Readify for several years now as a Visual Studio Team System professional any time I hear about Australia & TFS/VSTS/ALM. I’m really looking forward being able to visit multiple customer sites again and coming up with solutions to their ALM problems. It’s been a while since I’ve been an ALM consultant so I’m looking forward to the variety. Even more, as an MVP I’m looking forward to a whole new set of venues to get involved with the community on a new continent. I think I’m going to have a busy schedule!

There are tons of different things for me to solve as an American citizen living abroad. It’s interesting that Grant Holliday just made the opposite move almost a year ago and I plan on doing the same thing as he has and try to write about the differences between the two countries. Hopefully you’ll find it as interesting as I did with Grant’s story.

I’m planning a really simple move: packing up a few suitcases of clothes and jumping on a plane. Hoping that works out well for me! :)

I have decided to continue working with Infragistics until the beginning of August to wrap things up and hopefully train my replacement. I guess the cat is out of the bag with the official job opening announcement on our website listed under Research & Development. That position is listed to be the back-fill headcount for my current position. Finally – I’d like to ask you to help us out: If you’ve heard about our TFS instance and VSTS implementation from some of my user group talks or the Radio TFS episode and are interested (or know someone awesome who might be) in continuing this exciting work, please let me know! You can send me a quick note to ed at infragistics dot com or use any of the contact links from my blog website.

Take care!

Ed Blankenship

Radio TFS Interview – Using TFS at Infragistics with Ed Blankenship

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:56:42 GMT

I’m up really early this morning. I’m about to head to the airport to spend my Independence Day weekend in the Carolinas for some much needed beach vacation and visit with friends. Thankfully, I didn’t miss Martin Woodward letting me know that the latest Radio TFS episode was made available just a few moments ago that includes my interview about our use of TFS and Visual Studio Team System at Infragistics. It’s a longer episode than normal so it’s perfect if you’re going to be spending some time at the beach like me and listen to a fun talk. We both really enjoyed chatting for this episode so we hope you enjoy it as well!

Using TFS with Ed Blankenship

In this episode we sit down and chat with Ed Blankenship about the use of Team Foundation Server at Infragistics. Ed has had some interesting challenges and experiences in running their TFS instance. Additionally they have done some fairly advanced integration work which we discuss in detail. This is a double-length show, so hopefully plenty of stuff to enjoy if you are sunning yourself on a beach somewhere.

Ed is the Release Engineering Manager at Infragistics, makers of the world's leading presentation layer tools and components. He is also a Microsoft MVP in Visual Studio Team System.

Play Now: Using TFS with Ed Blankenship

As the Release Engineering Manager, he leads the Release Engineering Department which is responsible for automated builds, creating product installers, packaging source code for customers, source configuration management/version control, metrics, release management, work item tracking, licensing enforcement, and development of internal productivity tools. The department also is responsible for TFS Operations & Maintenance.

Ed has been a technical editor for the Wrox Silverlight 1.0, Silverlight 2 Developer's Guide, and Silverlight 2 Bible books, author of numerous articles, and has spoken at various user groups, events, and conferences.

Links from the show:

Ed's Blog

Microsoft Process Template

Martin's Blog Post on Check-in Policies

How to turn on Activity Logging with TFS 2005

As usual send any feedback to radiotfs@gmail.com.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions based on the Radio TFS chat. I’m more than happy to get them answered for you!

Take care,

Ed B.

Speaking at the Team System User Group Virtual Edition – EMEA Meeting in June

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:43:44 GMT

Come join! Here’s the website and the details.

Website: http://www.tsug-ve.com/

JUNE EMEA Meeting
Meeting Date: Thursday, June 18th, 2009
Time: 10:00AM PDT/SLT (18:00 UTC)
Location: Microsoft Island in Second Life

Real World TFS: Tips for a Successful Team System Implementation

OK, you’ve decided that Visual Studio Team System & Team Foundation Server is going to bring your organization added value (because it will :)) but what do you do now? This session will cover the 2.5 year successful implementation of VSTS and the experience of that journey at Infragistics, the world’s leading maker of software development tools. The session intends to cover over each phase of the implementation over all of the affected areas for a smooth adoption: Version Control, Builds, Work Item Tracking, global deployment, moving multiple teams, training, automated testing, migration from legacy systems, and integration with other systems and TFS. The goal will be to go through at a high-level what it takes to make you successful by learning from the challenges and obstacles overcome. We’ll also look to the future with VSTS 2010 and see how strategic planning will help make a successful adoption of the new features in the upcoming 2010 release. The session is led by a Team System MVP & Champ who has been in the trenches during the whole implementation.

Prerequisites: A healthy attitude from learning from other’s challenges and a strong desire to make real change at your organization!

Take care,

Ed B.

Easy Assist – Little Known Feature for Live Meeting Account Holders

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:00:44 GMT

I’ll have to admit, the Easy Assist feature is not very discoverable if you have a Live Meeting account but it’s really really really useful! So imagine you have a coworker or a mother who needs help but they’re not where you’re at. There are a lot of different ways for people to do remote assistance support but if you have a Live Meeting account there’s another way that I’ve been using: Easy Assist. It’s the same app that lots of support professionals at Microsoft Product Support & Services use to help customers remotely.

BTW: If you’re an MVP, you have received a complimentary Live Meeting account as part of your benefits!

Downloads for End-users who need support

Download the Microsoft Easy Assist support console for joining an Easy Assist session

Download the Microsoft Easy Assist Safe Mode Client for troubleshooting within Windows Safe Mode

Downloads for Support Agent

Download the Easy Assist Launchpad for setting up Easy Assist sessions

Download the Microsoft Easy Assist support console for joining an Easy Assist session

Easy Assist Launchpad

So the first thing you should do to help create support sessions quickly as a “support agent” is get the Easy Assist Launchpad installed so it sits in your tray and waits for you. When you launch it for the first time, it’ll ask you to put in your Live Meeting credentials. These are the same that you would use when you setup & configure the Live Meeting client.

After you have finished that, the Launchpad will sit in your system tray and has a few options available for you:

I’ve went ahead and chosen “Create Session” and I’m just going to put in something to let my Mom (and I) know this is for her session.

After, creating the session you’ll have the option to join the session yourself and also send the invite by e-mail (using your default e-mail application) to the person you’re trying to support. Look at the URL… you’ll notice it’s very similar to a Live Meeting invite but instead it has the “joinEA?” inside of it. This is important because this is what makes the end user experience better for the support agent and the person being supported because it will fire off the Easy Assist client instead of the full Live Meeting client.

Support Agent Features

Once you’ve fired off the Easy Assist support agent client, you’ll be able to see the other support agents that are attending as well as the person(s) you are trying to support. You can request that they reboot, share their screen, share your screen, request to control their session, send files, and more. Support agent screens:

All the end user sees is a small window that’s out of view. After the session, it even asks the end user if they would like to uninstall the Easy Assist client since it’s not needed anymore! How nice?! It even works if the customer has booted in safe mode. Very handy at times.

You can see how it’s super easy to escalate a support call from a family member, an IM/e-mail from a co-worker, or even setting up a session for you to get help from a support agent who doesn’t have remote assistance provided by their employer. Hope this is helpful to you!

Ed B.

First TFS iPhone App - TFSToGo

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:14:56 GMT

This has been out for a little while but wanted to make sure that you knew about it as well!

Our Director of Product Development here at Infragistics, Joe Croney, has been working on a personal side project of creating an iPhone app that will connect to Team Foundation Server. He’s got a BETAposted in the Apple iTunes store now. At the moment it only supports checking on Builds but I know he’s starting a backlog.

More screenshots and an FAQ are available at the website: http://www.tfstogo.com/

Joe is looking for some feedback and any bugs so if you find some feel free to report them at support@tfstogo.com. Congrats Joe!

FYI: We’ve found that if you connect over VPN in the iPhone that sometimes a local DNS name isn’t resolved correctly. You can correct this by putting in the hard-coded IP address of the TFS server instead.

Have fun and enjoy!

Ed B.

Draining the Blog Topic Backlog

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:24:27 GMT

It’s been pretty quiet around this blog for quite some time now. Just been busy traveling to TechEd North America and back to our office in New Jersey. Lots going on! However, no one ever has enough time to get everything done :)

I’m going to be a little more demanding on myself to get through my blog topic backlog that I’ve been keeping for a while. I think I’m up to 19 at the moment so I need to get it flushed out! I keep a list alongside my To-Do list in OneNote about different topics that I come across that I blog about. Usually they are from problems that I see day to day that other people probably will want to solve at some point (I always archive the screenshots so I can use them in my blog posts later.) Other topics that end up on the list are in response to something I’ve done while traveling. For example, Martin Woodward and I had the chance to record a Radio TFS episode (not yet aired) where we talked about our implementation of Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Team System at Infragistics. I think it was a great session and definitely looking forward to it getting out in the wild. There were a few topics that we talked of stumbles we’ve encountered over the last two years and how we ended up solving them. The goal for us was to get those out in the public since others may be experiencing the same hurdles and looking for resources on how to solve them. It’s more along the lines of “hey, here’s our story so you can learn from our mistakes.” I hope you find them useful. On this blog, I’ll start talking about some of those points that we brought up in more detail since the radio show has to be reduced to a reasonable amount of time :) Some of the stuff we talked about was just down-right cool! More details to come…

So, dear reader, I am pledging to you to get through my current blog topic backlog by the end of June. Let me know if you would like me to write about anything in particular!

Take care,

Ed B.

P.S. I cross-post between my Infragistics Blog and my personal blog . Some posts don’t end up on my Infragistics Blog site so be sure to check http://www.edsquared.com/ from time to time where my long-time colleague Ed Kisinger and I blog. If you’d like to subscribe to that feed, the RSS address is: RSS for Posts

MPT Talk at Dallas VSTS User Group

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:56:37 GMT

I had a really good time last night speaking to the Dallas VSTS User Group about the Microsoft Process Template. If you want more information, I wrote a blog post shortly after the public release of the MPT. I was really sick last month when I was supposed to speak so I’m really glad I got the opportunity to make it up.

One of the things I really enjoy about the group was the open session time after the scheduled talk to discuss problems people were facing with Team System and the group attempts to come up with possible solutions. That’s really a great use of time for a specialized user group like this one.

As a fun extra, thankfully the Demo Gods were okay with me and saved this Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) until after I was finished using the VPC during my talk :) Everyone insisted that I take a screenshot and share with the rest of the world so enjoy!

Ed B.

P.S. As a side note, the experience whenever your evaluation license runs out in Windows Server 2008 has definitely improved. It no longer gives you a BSOD. I was using TFS 2008 SP1 installed in a Windows Server 2003 VPC for my demos.

Microsoft Process Template

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:06:34 GMT

In December, I had the privilege to be the “MVP in Residence” with the Team System product group. Chuck blogged about the experience at the beginning and end of the week. I felt really good about the accomplishments at the end of the week. The main project I worked on was packaging up the Microsoft Process Template (MPT) so that it could used by the public community. I’m happy to announce that it is live on CodePlex now so feel free to download and use it!

Description

The Microsoft Process Template (MPT) is a Microsoft internal, end-to-end project management solution that maps to the Microsoft product development cycle and works with Visual Studio Team System 2008 (VSTS). The MPT offers an out-of-the-box solution and includes all the work item types (forms), queries, documentation, engineering best practices, and reports required for Microsoft development teams to get up and running on Visual Studio Team System. The Engineering Excellence* and Visual Studio Development teams worked together closely over the last year to create this template by compiling the lessons learned from other teams that have implemented similar templates, incorporating engineering best practices, widely socializing the concepts, and finally piloting this template with several product groups.
*The engineering excellence team is a Microsoft business unit that provides Microsoft business group employees with high-quality technical education, best practices and guidance.

Be sure to check out the Introduction and the Getting Started guides to dive in and get the background information for the process template. One of the main things that people will notice is that the MPT simulates work item hierarchy through the the use of some daemon services. There are several ways to simulate hierarchy in TFS 2008 so if you’re looking for a solution the MPT has the services source code and reports created for them.

Here is a sample report that uses the hierarchy to rollup the progress by Feature:

There are a few known issues with the process template which are listed in the Getting Started guide. I’ll be sure to keep the guide updated if I hear of any other known issues.

Other MPT Resources

Gregg Boer, Principal Program Manager on the TFS product group, wrote an excellent series of blog posts of how Microsoft uses the MPT internally along with an overview of the process around tracking progress throughout the release.

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 1 (Our Process)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 2 (Feature Crews)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 3 (Implementing the Process)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 3 (Addendum)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 4

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 5 (Tracking Progress)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 6 (Tracking multiple projects)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 6 (Addendum)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS-Chapter 7 (Tracking Risk)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS-Chapter 8 (Tracking Quality Gates)

· How Microsoft/Dev Div uses TFS - Chapter 9 (Transparency in Reporting)

Jeff Beehler and Brian Keller also put together a video of how Jeff uses the MPT & TFS to monitor progress of the release cycle. Take a look on Channel 9: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/briankel/Better-Project-Management-with-Team-Foundation-Server/

I really want to thank you to everyone that helped getting it packaged up for the public! Also, thanks to Chuck for organizing the week, working logistics, and of course giving me a place to stay!

Ed B.

Azure User Group in Dallas

Ed Kisinger (EdSquared.com) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:10:41 GMT

I just found out about this group from an MSDN Flash. Check them out; there is a meeting tonight.

Azure User Group Website

The website is home for many Azure User Groups from around the world.

Ed K.

Azure Training Kit Updated

Ed Kisinger (EdSquared.com) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:29:16 GMT

Download here

Overview

The Azure Services Training Kit includes a comprehensive set of technical content including hands-on labs, presentations, and demos that are designed to help you learn how to use the Azure Services Platform. The February release includes the following updates:

19 demo scripts that walkthrough several of the services
10 presentations covering the entire Azure Services Platform
3 additional hands-on labs for Live Services

This technical content covers services including: Windows Azure, .NET Services, SQL Services, and Live Services.

Ed K.

TFS Performance Reports Pack

Ed Blankenship (EdSquared.com) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:10:13 GMT

Grant Holliday, former Team System MVP, is now working on the VSTS product group on various things but most importantly helping keep the internal Microsoft TFS servers in tip-top shape. They have the largest known TFS instances in the world so you could imagine it’s got to be tough keeping it up and running well. Brian Harry posts their usage metrics regularly if you’d like to get an idea of how HUGE it is.

Keeping the performance manageable requires lots of monitoring and looking over the data that gets stored in the activity logging. Grant has packaged up some of the reports they use internally and provided them to the world. The download package is available on his blog post.

Personally, I’m really glad that the product group is investing in dogfooding the early builds of the version of TFS that they are working on. By putting the product under real use and under the load that only Microsoft can generate, we end up with a better product by the time it RTMs.

Thanks again for making this available to the world!

Ed B.

Azure ramp-up

Ed Kisinger (EdSquared.com) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:27:09 GMT

Here are some links to get you started learning and developing on the Azure platform.

Azure Services Platform

Azure SDK downloads

Azure training Kit

PDC recorded sessions

Azure sample application (IssueTracker)

MSDN Azure blog

Ed K.

One year anniversary of NO TOBACCO

Ed Kisinger (EdSquared.com) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:58:38 GMT

Well, I have hit my one year mark of not using tobacco products!! Its been extremely hard but well worth the sacrifice. I will not lie to anyone thinking about quitting....I still have cravings but they are not as bad and they do not last as long. The main thing that got me through the first 6 months was "hard candy" by the truck loads (weight gain was present) and family support. After 6 months I was able to manage cravings with exercise and avoiding stressful situations.

Ed K.

TFS 2008 Build Notification Power Tool - Workgroup work around

Ed Kisinger (EdSquared.com) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:58:52 GMT

From those of you that use the Workgroup edition of Team Foundation Server you might have notice that you cannot use the Build Notification Power Tool since you cannot authenticate to TFS.

Here is what I have done to work around the noted limitation:

"RunAs" to the rescue:

C:\Windows\System32>runas.exe /user:ROSCOE\jbm /netonly "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2008 Power Tools\BuildNotification.exe"

To automate, create yourself a little batch file for startup. Here is a VBS script to automate the entry of the password for RunAs:

dim WshShell,FSO

set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
set WshEnv = WshShell.Environment("Process")

set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

WshShell.Run("C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:ROSCOE\jbm /netonly" & " {YourInstallPath}\BuildNotification.exe")

Wscript.Sleep 300 ' Wait for window to open

WshShell.AppActivate("C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe")
WshShell.SendKeys "{YourUserPassword}"
WshShell.SendKeys VBCRLF

set WshShell=Nothing
set WshEnv=Nothing
set FSO=Nothing

wscript.quit

[UPDATE]
You can "Connect As" from the GUI; Unfortunately, you will have to do this each time you restart.

Ed K.