Is it possible to download source tree from TFS Azure without using Visual Studio? - azure

I'm looking around mysite.tfspreview.com and I can view individual files, but I couldnt find a download all or get solution option.
So if a colleague doesnt have Visual Studio 2010 available and they wish to download a solution from TFS Azure preview what are the available options?

You should be able to use the command line client in the Microsoft Team Explorer Everywhere 11 Beta. It's not a big download (11MB), but I don't think there is a way to download a source tree directly from tfspreview without a client unless a zip has been added. Other source control services work this way (github, jira etc)

You don't need visual studio, but you need Team Explore which is add-on for Visual Studio or can be stand alone, it exists on the TFS media (DVD) or ISO, once you install Team Explore, you can access TFS Preview using GUI or Command line, you can also install TFS Power Tool 11 Beta, that will give you windows shell integration, so the context menu of the windows (when right click) it will has command to interact with TFS, as #Simon said, you can install Team Explorer Everywhere 11 Beta, but this for none windows OS or for add-on for other IDEs

Visual Studio Online has provided a means to do this (partly). On the website, navigate to your project's 'CODE/Explorer' tab. Right-click on whatever source directory/branch you wish and click the Download as ZIP menu item.
This will download a snapshot of whatever it is you selected. While extracting this won't "magically" link the files back to Visual Studio Online (ie, changes made will not be able to be committed directly from Windows Explorer, etc) or give you direct access to history; it will retain any source control bindings in any Visual Studio projects. This may be a good or a bad thing, depending on your circumstances.

Related

Visual Studio 2013 Team Explorer window displaying inaccurate TFS status / capabilities, difficulty changing collections

After upgrading from Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 Update 4 to Update 5, I am experiencing some odd behavior between Visual Studio and TFS (also 2013.5).
Issues/Symptoms
* Team Explorer claims its disconnected from TFS, even though Source Control Explorer works as expected.
* The number of buttons in Team Explorer for projects has been reduced down to 3.
* Changing projects between TFS collections (on the same TFS app tier server) isn't working correctly. The change doesn't happen. Instead, I have to go out and open the solution in the other collection from disk. Then the active collection is "noted" by Visual Studio.
What I've tried
Running devenv.exe /ResetSettings and multiple other switches
Repairing the installation using both the 2013.5.exe download and the ISO download from MSDN
None of the above has changed the Team Explorer behavior issues.
According to your description Team Explorer for projects has been reduced down to 3 seems related to source control bindings or workspace mappings. You could double check this to narrow down the issue.
As a simple way you could try :
Delete your old workspace. Need to check in local pending changes
first and back up your local files.
Create a new clean workspace and mapping it to server. Then get
down the latest version from server to local.
Clear TFS and VS cache. Reload VS to open the project or solution
Also take a look at the Event View to see if there are some related info of the issue.

TFS Issue: Projects missing in the Source Control Explorer's left pane

i am having an issue in the TFS. I am able to login to my TFS account but i am not able to access any project and its files in my visual studio 2012. Also, the Folder pane on the left hand side in source control explorer is not loading any projects. Its blank.
What am i supposed to do?
Several things need to be checked:
Make sure your VS has the latest update installed (Requires latest Visual Studio 2012 update. Supports Git with Visual Studio Tools for Git extension.).
Make sure there are team projects under the Collection you connect.
Contact the administrator to see whether you have the permission to read the project.

How do I download the content of a project in Visual Studio TFS?

How do I download the content of a project in Visual Studio TFS? I clicked around and I did not find an easy or intuitive way to do it. It is an old project that I thought had been lost until I reinstalled the latest version of Visual Studio.
You can get the TFS project from Visual Studio. First, you have to connect the project via Team Explorer in Visual Studio then add a server and click 'select team project' and you're done. It is downloaded to your PC.
You can find a documentation here.
EDIT:
Also, if you want to download your code as a zip:
You can click on any ellipsis to find the menu which contains Download as Zip option.
If you merely want an archive of the contents of a folder, you can right-click on the folder in the tree view on the left hand side of the page (in this case, on $/gelsana) and select the option "Download as Zip".
This is suitable for archival purposes. You cannot check-in changes made using this option.

How to get latest or commit with TFS server from Windows Explorer?

My need
Currently I have to open Visual Studio to make a get latest or a commit pending changes.
I want to do that the same way with TortoiseSVN right in Windows Explorer.
What I have tried
I made google research and comes down to using the tool called TFS 2012 Power Tools
Someone also mentioned about this issue here
Though after installed, I got nothing working as espected. Wondering did I do wrong then...
I'm using Windows 8.1 and Visual Studio 2012 Web Express.
Question
How should I do to install it properly and get it work after all then?
Assuming that when you installed the power tools you enabled shell integration and then logged out/back in to active them, then you need to do a few things:
Do an initial 'get' from TFS using Visual Studio Team Explorer and make a note of your workspace folder.
In Windows Explorer, right click that workspace folder. You should see the context menu items appear.
Most people having trouble with the context menu appearing have forgotten that to log out and log back in, as Windows Explorer needs to be restarted to pick up the new shell extension.

Visual Studio 2012 Windows service .vdproj project migration

I'm trying to move a solution I have over to Visual Studio 2012 and one of the project types is .vdproj.
According to this link this project type is not supported in Visual Studio 2012:
MSDN says they recommend that you use InstallShield Limited Edition for Visual Studio.
The problem is, when I open up my solution in VS2012 and try to add a new "Enable InstallShield Limited Edition" project to my solution, I get an error message saying:
Creating project 'test'...project creation failed.
Why might I not be able to add a project of this type to my solution?
If I make a new empty solution I can't make an InstallShield project it in either.
I'm going to try to download InstallShield limited edition and see if it does anything.
I tried out that InstallShield download, and it added two extra project types, but I'm unable to create either of them. I'm able to add normal website projects to my solutions just fine, but not deployment projects.
The installer was named the same, but this one prompted me to re-start. After re-starting I was able to add an InstallShield project, but it gets created in its own solution. So, it looks like now I have to figure out how to use it, and I'll be good to go.
It's looking like the limited edition doesn't have support to install Windows services.
This will probably be long and boring because there's lots of steps, but I'd like to write up how to move from a Windows service installer .vdproj to the new InstallShield LE that's available in Visual Studio 2012.
Step 1: Create a merge module (.msm)
Follow the steps of this guide.
Notes:
You will need to install WiX 3.6 and isWiX
The latest release of IsWiX doesn't enable the Tools menu item in Visual Studio 2012. Edit the file: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\AddIns\IsWiXAddin.Addin (XML) and clone the HostApplication element and update 10.0 to 11.0.
In step #8 of the guide, it references a code tab. This has been moved to the XML Editor item in the bottom of the left menu
I left the MergeRedirectFolder empty for my installation
Here is my isWix files view:
After you're done with the guide you should have an empty .wxs file that looks something like this:
Using the Component XML element pulled from here you should end up with a .wxs file that looks like this:
Hit build and you should now have a .msm file.
Step 2: Adding merge module to InstallShield
Go though the wizard to setup the basic install information like company and version information.
Find the redistributables view in ISLE. Right click the list and select browse for module. After your module is found and added, right click the modules and select properties. Set the destination folder drop down to INSTALLDIR. I had to set mine to the lowest level folder I created for my install path, so you might have to experiment a bit.
Build Project, and test on virtual machine
Redistributables Screen
If you're getting errors about the path being too long you might need to change the release location to something close to the root.
Here's a list of all the build errors for reference.
Now you should be able to run your installer and have it install/start a Windows service. A lot more work than .MSI files, we got it to generate in Visual Studio 2010, but overall it was not too bad.
While there is no easy or truly supported solution for Visual Studio 2012, Visual Studio 2013 users can get an extension from Microsoft in the Visual Studio Gallery.
I found this post which says you must download InstallShield first. It's a very confusing way to work. I suggest to vote up the post on the connect site and give them comments letting know how poor that is. They could at least give a more descriptive error http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/732196/project-creation-failed-for-installshield-limited-edition#tabs

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