The new-and-improved version has been published. Promised this time is a number of buggfixes, especially VS2003 integration deserves this...

This version (1.2) includes (from the download page):

• Enable handling branched solutions in Visual Studio 2003.
• Fixed issues to enable provider to support Toad for SQL Server 2.0.
• Enhanced the "Choose Folder in Team Foundation Server" dialog.
• Fixed bug which prevented Properties Dialog from displaying local path.
• Work Items Query list in the Checkin Dialog is loaded and saved on the disk.
• "Get" operation performance improvements.
• Defect fixes

The Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider v.1.2 can be downloaded here.

Got this question yesterday; can the ASP.NET session object be used to store state in a web service? The answer is yes, but the web service method must be marked with EnableSession = true.

Below is a small code snippet that shows how it's done:

[WebMethod(EnableSession = true)]
public string HelloWorld()
{   
   // Check if item in cache, else add it.
   if (HttpContext.Current.Session["stateItem"] == null)
   {
      HttpContext.Current.Session["stateItem"] = "some-item-to-store";
   }

   return (string)HttpContext.Current.Session["stateItem"];
}

Simple, but yet easy to forget...

Last week I was interviewed by the Swedish Microsoft Partner program about my thoughts regarding the MCP program, why we focus on certification and what the value of it is. The article can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/sverige/partner/callista_mcp.aspx (in Swedish).

This year we attended the European TechEd in Barcelona, Spain. Tons of fun stuff and many Swedish colleagues.

Our impressions from TechEd can be viewed on the Swedish Microsoft MSDN web, found at http://www.microsoft.com/sverige/msdn/teched_2006.aspx (in Swedish).

I gave a talk on WCF Updates at the IBC Euroforum conference yesterday. There seemed to be a good interest in WCF, which of course was encouraging.

The presentation can be downloaded here: Windows Communication Foundation.ppt (567 KB)

Enjoy!

The official white-paper on the subject can be found here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=55933.

This white paper provides an overview of Visual Studio 2005 Team System licensing, focusing on typical configuration and deployment issues. This document will provide a general understanding of the core features, typical deployment scenarios and required licensing for the Visual Studio 2005 Team System product line.

Chris Menegay has some additional information here http://teamsystemrocks.com/blogs/chris_menegays_weblog/archive/2006/02/07/657.aspx.

The TFS release candidate was released a coupe of days ago on MSDN downloads (http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/).

After waiting half a day for the files to come down the installation was pretty much a breeze. Of course after having installed the previous betas the expectations on the setup wasn't too high... My first attempt was at a single-server installation running as its own domain controller. I started of by uninstalling the old TFS according to the docs. After that I started the TFS setup. This turned out to be a bad solution since the RC won't install on a machine acting as DC. I tried to demote the machine but that broke most other components so I had to reinstall the server, this time as a stand-alone server. After that the install procedure worked pretty well. SQL Server installed fine. I had to stop the SQL Brower service while installing the KB912838 since some files apparently were in use but that was all. An hour later or so I had created a new Team Project!

So far this TFS version seem to be in good shape. Performance is a major difference but there are many changes since beta 3.

The latest version of the setup guide can be found here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=40042. Do follow it in detail in to get a smooth install of TFS. So for once its a really good idea to RTFM up front...

There is also a utility to upgrade from TFS beta 3 refresh to TFS RC at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=60341.