Planet SCM

One of the new features we've added to TSWA for the SP1 release is the ability to create URLs that are effectively work item templates by virtue of the fact that they have the values for the work items embedded in the URL itself.

Since constructing these URLs manually is really painful, we have an icon on the work item editor when you are creating a new work item that creates the URL and places it in the Windows clipboard.

Bring up the new work item form, fill in whatever values you want to get automatically set each time you use the URL, and then click the "globe with chain link" icon below the Save button.

Then you’ll get a pop-up message like this letting you know the template URL is now in the clipboard.

When you paste the contents of the clipboard, you'll get a link like this.

http://myserver:8090/UI/Pages/WorkItems/WorkItemEdit.aspx?pname=Orcas&wit=Orcas%20Bug&[System.Title]=Bug%20Bash%3A&[System.AreaPath]=Orcas%5CBuild%5CTeam%20Build&[System.IterationPath]=Orcas%5CRosario%5CBeta&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.IssueType]=Code%20Defect&[Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Severity]=2&[Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Priority]=2&[Microsoft.VSTS.Common.OpenBuild]=21022.08&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.OpenedBranch]=Orcas%20RTM&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.HowFound]=Dogfooding&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.Source]=Development&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.ProductUnit]=TFS&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.TeamLevel1]=Team%20Build&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.Blocking]=Not%20Blocking

That link will create a new Orcas Bug work item in the Orcas team project that I can use to quickly file a bug on the TFS Build feature.

• Title starts with "Bug Bash:"
• Area Path is "Orcas\Build\Team Build"
• Iteration Path is "Orcas\Rosario\Beta"
• Issue Type is "Code Defect"
• Severity is "2"
• Priority is "2"
• Build is "21022.08"
• Branch is "Orcas RTM"
• How Found is "Dogfooding"
• Source is "Development"
• Product Unit is "TFS"
• Team Level 1 is "Team Build"
• Blocking is "Not Blocking"

With all of that filled in automatically, all I need to do after clicking the link is fill in the Description and Repro Steps.  That's a lot faster!

Previous tip: TSWA tip: Copy a bug to quickly file a new bug in an area related to the original

Hakan has announced the availability of the new TSWA community technology preview (CTP) in his post, What's New in TSWA 2008 SP1.  Personally, I would say this release is beta quality or better, so don't let the CTP designation scare you too much.

Also released is the first CTP release of what we are calling Work Item Web Access (WIWA).  You may recall that we published a spec for it recently, referring to it as a "bug submission portal."  WIWA provides you with the ability to have folks create work items and view work items they have created without needing a client access license (CAL) for 2008.  This was a new condition that was added to the TFS 2008 license agreement.  Hakan has more details in his post on WIWA.

Both the CTP of TSWA and the CTP of WIWA have the same requirements as the previous release of TSWA 2008 (e.g., you must have Team Explorer 2008 installed as a prerequisite).

This release of TSWA has some really great new features.

• Single instance with multiple languages
• Support for specifying field values in the URL for creating new work items (works in both TSWA and WIWA)
• Share ad-hoc work item queries
• Shelveset viewer
• Improved search support

I want to call out two features in particular that I really like.

Support for specifying field values in the URL for creating new work items (works in both TSWA and WIWA)

How often have you wanted users or testers to file bugs and needed to have them fill in certain fields with particular values so that the work item shows up in the correct area?  We now support providing field values in the new work item URL.  Here's the example that Hakan provided.

http://<server>/wi.aspx?pname=MyProject&wit=Bug&[Title]=Bug Bash&[AssignedTo]=Hakan Eskici&[Iteration Path]=MyProject\Iteration2&[FoundIn]=9.0.30304

This will open a new work item editor window with the following initial values:

• Team Project = MyProject
• Work Item Type = Bug
• Title = Bug Bash
• Assigned To = Hakan Eskici
• Iteration Path = MyProject\Iteration2
• Found in Build = 9.0.30304

Now you can start sending your users and testers a link with all of this already filled in!

Improved search support

Have you ever wanted to search for bugs assigned to someone in particular or in a particular area without writing a query?  In the past, you could only search the Title and Description fields in a work item, which I described here.  Now you can enter the following into the search box in TSWA to find any bug assigned to me that also has the word "exception" in the Title or Description.

exception a="Buck Hodges"

The core fields have shortcuts.  Any field can be used by specifying the reference name for the field.  Here's the equivalent without using the shortcut.

exception System.AssignedTo="Buck Hodges"

Here are the shortcuts for the core fields.

• A: Assigned To
• C: Created By
• S: State
• T: Work Item Type

You can use TFS macros, such as @me, in search.  For example, find all work items containing "watson" in the Title or Description that are assigned to me that are in the Resolved state and are work items of type Bug.

watson a=@me s=Resolved t=Bug

Now, if you really want to do something cool, there are the "contains" and "not" operations.  The "=" operator matches exact phrases, whereas the ":" operator is used for "contains" clauses.  The following search looks for bugs assigned to Active (i.e., not assigned to any particular person yet) where the word "repro" is contained in the History field.

a=Active History:repro

This example illustrates the difference between the two operators.  The first example finds all work items where the Title is exactly "Bug Bash" with no other words or characters in it.  The second example, which uses the contains operator (colon) rather than the exact match operator (equals), finds all bugs where the Title contains the phrase "Bug Bash" along with any other words or characters.

• Title="Bug Bash"
• Title:"Bug Bash"

Personally, I find myself almost always using the contains operator.

Finally, you need to be able to exclude certain things from your search.  For that, there is the not operator, which is represented by the hyphen ("-").  The following example finds all work items with "watson" in the Title or Description fields that are not assigned to me and that are not closed.

watson –a=@me –s=closed

The not operator only works with field references, so you can’t use the following to find all work items containing "watson" but not containing "repro" in the Title and Description fields.

watson –repro

However, you can accomplish this by specifying the Title field explicitly with the not operator.

watson –Title:repro

Please send us your feedback on both the new features and Work Item Web Access!

Hakan Eskici, program manager for Team System Web Access, has posted the spec for a new power tool that's based on TSWA that is designed to help customers comply with the new licensing changes in TFS 2008 while getting the most out of the product.  Please read this, as well as the other Rosario specs, and give us your feedback.

Spec available for "Codename TFS Bug Submission Portal"

We've published the spec for the "Codename TFS bug submission portal" power tool on Rosario Specs website (1).

Note (1): Although it appears on Rosario specs website, this is a power tool for TFS 2008 (Orcas).

Here's some background:

Team Foundation Server 2008 Standard Edition allows using some of the work item tracking features even without a Client Access License (CAL).

“You do not need a CAL to access work item tracking functionality to create new work items, or view and update work items you opened”

Even thought the EULA enables these scenarios, there's no out-of-box UI that will help customers to make sure they're in compliance with the license terms. Therefore, we have built a power tool based on TSWA that will enable these 3 core scenarios:

As a user without a CAL, I can:

create new work items

edit the work items I’ve created

see the list of work items I’ve created

The codename for this power tool is "TFS Bug Submission Portal" for now, and the official name will probably be different.

To learn more about the details, please take a look at the spec. Your feedback is very important for us, so please make sure you express your thoughts on the spec discussion forum, we're looking forward to hearing from you!

Hakan also posted Wednesday about the Anniversary of the devBiz acquisition.  It's amazing how quickly a year goes by, and how much can be accomplished.

Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Team Foundation Server, Team Suite, Architecture Edition, Development Edition, Database Edition, and Test Edition. In addition, discuss what's new for these editions for Visual Studio 2008.

Add to Calendar

April 9, 2008
10:00 A.M. Pacific Time
Additional Time Zones

Ed Blankenship asked a question recently regarding having multiple languages supported by the same TSWA instance. Hakan provided the answer, and both of them blogged it.

• Hakan Eskici : Serving all languages of TSWA from a single server
• Ed Squared - Multiple Localized Team System Web Access Sites

Please note that this is not a supported configuration (i.e., that means we didn't test it, it could cause problems with uninstalling, etc.).

The final set of localized versions of the Team System Web Access 2008 Power Tool is now available.

Here is a list of links to all of the localized releases of TSWA.

• Chinese Simplified
• Chinese Traditional
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Spanish

We're always interested in what you think about the localizations, too.  If there are ways we can improve it, we would like to incorporate that feedback into TSWA as part of Rosario.

Enjoy!

A couple of days ago, we released TSWA in Japanese.  French and German became available yesterday.  We'll be releasing more over the coming days.

Part of our plan for the TSWA 2008 Power Tool is to release localized versions.  Japanese is the first language to become available.  Chinese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Korean are currently planned for release over the next month.

Here's the download page in Japanese, along with a link to it.

Team System Web Access (??? TeamPlain) ??Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server ? Web ??????????????

??

Team System Web Access 2008 ???????????????Team System Web Access 2008 ??Team Foundation Server ???????????????????????Team System Web Access 2008 ???? Team Foundation Server ??????????Team Foundation Server ????????????????????????
??

• ??? : ?????????????????????????????
• ??? : ??????????????? ?????????
• ??? : ?????????????????????????????????
• ?????????????????????
• ???????????????????????????
• ???????????????????????????
• SharePoint ??? ????????????????????????????????????????????
• ????????PDF ????? Excel ??????????
• ??????????????????????????????????????????????????
• ????????????????????
• ?????????????????

Hakan Eskici is the program manager for Team System Web Access.  He's now blogging, and his first post provides some history on how TeamPlain became TSWA.

A little bit about myself and Web Access

Some of you might already know that I'm the Program Manager on the Web Access team in Team Foundation Server product group.

In March 2007, Microsoft acquired the company I had founded with Ahmet Akkas back in 2001. Ahmet, Serkan (one of our senior developers) and I, along with our families, moved to beautiful North Carolina in June 2007 and started to work in Microsoft's Raleigh office.

The story starts in 2001, when my old time friend Ahmet Akkas and I had decided to start a software company in Izmir, Turkey. Our company was called devBiz.

more...

Today we have released the final version of the Team System Web Access (TSWA) 2008 power tool!  Team System Web Access provides a web interface to Team Foundation Server 2008.

Here's a list of feature changes.  Of course, we also fixed a number of bugs.

• New direct links: Previously, you could construct a direct link to a work item (http://mytfs:8090/wi.aspx?id=123).  Now you can also construct direct links to more features, and the direct links no longer open the main TSWA page, making them more responsive.  Keep reading to find out how to use them.
• Performance improvements: The code now uses server memory more efficiently, resulting in increased performance.
• Custom work item controls: First introduced in the CTP, we have continued to refine support for custom work item controls in TSWA.  To take advantage of this feature, you'll need to implement web versions of your existing custom controls.  You'll find documentation for it in the SDK folder underneath the folder where you install TSWA.  The following examples have been added since the CTP, in addition to the samples for checkbox, a work item picker, and a multi-value selector.
  • How to validate a work item on the client-side (Javascript)
  • How to validate a work item on the server-side
  • How to design a control whose field depends on the values of other fields
  • How to design a control that changes other field values (such as the WI state) and saves the work item
• Team Build 2008 support: Also introduced in the CTP, you can view the build queue and queue new builds, which are features that are new for TFS 2008.

For those of you who remember the need for the TSWA users group in the installation of the TSWA 2005 power tool, you'll be happy to know that is gone.  That was something we had to add to satisfy security requirements, but we've since changed the code to handle the impersonation better such that impersonated user identities no longer need access to any of the local directories for cache files and user settings (i.e., the code reverts to the service account while it accesses those).

Note that you need to install Team Explorer 2008 on the computer before installing TSWA 2008.

Direct Links

Here is the list of direct links and examples showing how to construct them.  The previous releases only supported direct links to work items, and Neno Loje has a great post on how to modify work item alert emails to use TSWA links.  The new direct links, such as diff, provide the ability to make the checkin email alerts really useful, too (more on that later).

• Work item tracking
  • Work item editor
    • Open the existing work item with ID 1234: http://mytfs:8090/wi.aspx?id=1234 
    • Create a new work item of type Bug in team project TeamProject:  http://mytfs:8090/wi.aspx?pname=TeamProject&wit=Bug
  • Query editor
    • Open the query editor to create a new query: http://mytfs:8090/qe.aspx?pname=TeamProject
    • Edit the existing public query (under "Team Queries") called "Team Bugs" (scope is either public or private, which corresponds to Team Queries or My Queries, respectively, in English systems): http://mytfs:8090/qe.aspx?pname=TeamProject&name=Team%30Bugs&scope=public
  • Query results
    • Execute the private query (under "My Queries") called "My Bugs": http://mytfs:8090/q.aspx?pname=TeamProject&name=My%30Bugs&scope=private
• Version Control
  • Changeset details
    • Display the details for changeset 1234 by specifying the changeset number: http://mytfs:8090/cs.aspx?cs=1234
    • Display the details for changeset 1234 by specifying the artifact URI: http://mytfs:8090/cs.aspx?csuri=vstfs:///VersionControl/Changeset/1234
  • History
    • Display the version history of the file or folder identified by item ID 789: http://mytfs:8090/history.aspx?item=789
    • Display the version history of the file $/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/history.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs 
    • Display the version history of the directory tree at $/TeamProject/Secret (history of a folder is recursive; specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the folder is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/history.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Secret 
  • Compare files (diff)
    • Display the differences between the latest version of two different files, identified by item IDs 789 and 3456 ("o" indicates the original version that will be displayed on the left, and "m" indicates the modified version that will be displayed on the right): http://mytfs:8090/diff.aspx?oitem=789&mitem=3456
    • Display the differences between two different versions of the same file, identified by item ID 789 and changesets 100 and 200: http://mytfs:8090/diff.aspx?oitem=789&ocs=100&mitem=789&mcs=200
    • Display the differences between the latest version of two different files, identified by path (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/diff.aspx?opath=$/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs&mpath=$/TeamProject/SecretBranch/foo.cs 
    • Display the differences between two different versions of the same file, identified by path and changesets 100 and 200 (add the appropriate deletion ID, odel=N or mdel=M, for deleted files): http://mytfs:8090/diff.aspx?opath=$/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs&ocs=100&mpath=$/TeamProject/SecretBranch/foo.cs&mcs=200
  • View file
    • View the contents of the file identified by the item ID 789: http://mytfs:8090/view.aspx?item=789
    • View the contents of the file $/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/view.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs
  • Annotate (blame)
    • Display an annotated view of file $/TeamProject/Main/foo.cs (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/ann.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Main/foo.cs
    • Display an annotated view of file $/TeamProject/Main/foo.cs up until changeset 123 (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/ann.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Main/foo.cs&cs=123
    • Display an annotated view of file identified by item ID 789: http://mytfs:8090/ann.aspx?item=789
    • Display an annotated view of file identified by item ID 789 up until changeset 123: http://mytfs:8090/ann.aspx?item=789&cs=123

I've started a series of posts called TSWA Tips to help folks get the most out of Team System Web Access.

Enjoy!

Like Team Explorer, Team System Web Access does not support work item templates yet (though you can get a power tool work item template add-in for Team Explorer 2005 -- look for power tools for TFS 2008 in December).  However, you can use the "Create Copy of Work Item" feature to copy a work item that's similar to the one you want to file.  Then you only need to change the information that's different for the new bug and save it.

To do this, click the triangle beside the work item you want to copy and choose "Create Copy of Work Item" from the popup menu.  This particular feature is not available from the Tools menu on the tool bar, unlike "Add Related Work Item" which shows up in both places.

Clicking on "Create Copy of Work Item" will present you with a list of team projects.  The list of work item types are shown in the next menu when you click on a team project.

Once you choose the work item type, the new work item will open in a new window with all of the fields filled in from the original work item (if you choose a different work item type than the original, only fields that appear in the original will be filled in for the new work item).  Change the fields that need to be different and save the work item to finish creating the new one.

Previous tip: TSWA tip: Send an email with a work item or query results

Let's say you're going through your bugs and want to ask someone a question about one of them.  You can use Team System Web Access to send that person an email containing all of the work item's information and a link to it.

To email a work item, open the work item in TSWA.  Go to the Tools menu shown below and choose Send as Email.

You'll get a new window where you can enter the person's full email address and type a message.  The message body contains a link to the work item in Team System Web Access and all of the work item's fields and contents.

You can also email query results.  As with the work item above, go to the Tools menu and choose Send as Email.

You'll then get a similar email window that contains the results of the query and a link so that the email recipient can run the same query.

Enjoy!

Have you ever wanted a quick way to find the bugs containing some word?  Team System Web Access comes to your rescue.

In the upper left corner underneath the team project selector, there is a search box.  Type in a word and hit Enter.  If you want to search for a phrase rather than a single word, simply enclose it in quotation marks (e.g., "team build" or "team foundation server").  Without the quotation marks, you'll be searching for all work items having all of those words (e.g., entering "team build" without quotation marks finds all work items containing both the word "team" and the word "build" rather than just the phrase "team build").

Here I'm searching for all work items containing the word "tfsbuild" that are in the Orcas team project.  This will find tfsbuild, tfsbuild.exe, tfsbuild.proj, etc.

Here are the results.  In this case I've found 65 bugs.  Had there been any reports containing that word in the title or description, each would have been listed as well (e.g., we have 17 reports in Orcas containing the word "feature").

In case you are thinking that it's only searching the titles, I've highlighted two work items below that don't have the term "tfsbuild" in the title but do contain it in another field (Repro Steps or History, in this case).

Enjoy!

[Update 11/9/07]  I've corrected the difference between searching for a phrase in quotation marks and a set of words in a work item.

Sara Ford has a Visual Studio Tip of the Day series going.  I thought I'd publish some tips on using Team System Web Access, and this is the first.  I don't think I'll be able to do a tip per day.  Calling it a "TSWA tip a few times a week" just doesn't sound that great.  So I'll just leave it as TSWA Tips.

In the regular Team Explorer (aka Team Foundation Client), you can't edit work items in bulk except by exporting them to Excel (at least as of Team Explorer 2008).  However, you can do this using Team System Web Access.

First, select the work items that you want to edit in bulk by clicking the checkbox beside each.  I've selected five bugs below.  Then, select Bulk Edit -> Edit Work Items from the drop down menu near the upper right hand corner (or upper middle, depending on how wide your window is).

Now you are presented with a window where you can edit the core fields of a work item.  While this is not as flexible as defining the fields to edit like you can using a custom query and exporting to Excel, it's really convenient.

Here they all have a State of Closed, and I'm changing all of the bugs to be assigned to Closed (they were previously assigned to me).  When you click Save, you will see the progress as each work item is updated.

And I've just noticed that we didn't catch the fact that "successfully" is misspelled.  I'll file a bug on that. ;-)

Yesterday, Soma announced that VS 2008 and TFS 2008 ship this month.  Prior to that, we had only said it would ship by the end of this year.  It's going to be an exciting month.

Not long after TFS 2008 ships, we're going to ship the final version of the Team System Web Access 2008 Power Tool, and it includes a few new features.  I'll write more on those later.

Microsoft Commits to November Release Date for Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5

Microsoft expands interoperability options for partners, delivers new innovations with Microsoft Sync Framework and Popfly Explorer releases.

BARCELONA, Spain — Nov. 5, 2007 — Today, during the keynote address at Microsoft TechEd Developers 2007, S. “Soma” Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft Corp., announced that Microsoft will release Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 by the end of November 2007. Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 enable developers at all levels to rapidly create connected applications that offer compelling user experiences for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, mobile devices and the Web.

more..

Team System Web Access for TFS 2008 Power Tool CTP is now available!

For TFS 2008, TSWA will continue to be a power tool through the TFS 2008 release.  For the release after that, it will be a part of the regular product.  The final release of the TSWA for TFS 2008 power tool will happen near the time TFS 2008 ships, which we've stated is by the end of this year.

The big news with this release is the support for custom controls in work item forms.  When you install TSWA, you will find a subdirectory in the installation directory that contains the SDK documentation, which describes the interface, JavaScript functions, etc.  There are also several examples provided, including a checkbox, a work item picker, and a multi-value selector.  You will not be able to use existing custom controls as they are, because those are WinForms based and TSWA requires web-based controls.  However, the same basic concepts apply.  Please try this and let us know what you think!

We've also fixed a number of bugs and added support for some of the new Team Build functionality in TFS 2008 (queuing builds and viewing the build queue).  This should be a solid release.

For those of you who remember the need for the TSWA users group in the installation of the TSWA 2005 power tool, you'll be happy to know that is gone.  That was something we had to add to satisfy security requirements, but we've since changed the code to handle the impersonation better such that impersonated user identities no longer need access to any of the local directories for cache files and user settings (i.e., the code reverts to the service account while it accesses those).

Note that you need to install Team Explorer 2008 on the computer before installing TSWA 2008.  The previous release required Team Explorer 2005.

Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2008 Power Tool CTP

Overview

Team System Web Access is a free download that will be incorporated into a future release of Visual Studio Team System. You may install it with licensed installations of Team Foundation Server. You must be a licensed user of Team Foundation Server to access Team System Web Access.
Features

• NEW: Display custom controls on work item forms
• NEW: view queued builds new, queue new builds
• Add new work items or edit existing ones
• Work with any type of work item, including custom ones
• Add new work item queries or edit existing ones
• View, download, upload, check-in and check-out documents on SharePoint team portal
• View reports, export as PDF or Excel
• Browse source control repositories, download files, view changesets, diffs, histories, and annotated views
• View build results, start or stop builds
• Search for keywords in work items

Enjoy!

Neno Loje has written a blog post that shows you the steps to change the links in the TFS work item alert emails into links to work items in TSWA.  The standard links point you to a read-only page, which is not nearly as useful.

Check it out!

Changing TFS email notifications to link to Team System Web Access

Grant Holliday asked for an explanation of how a Web Access URL should be constructed to for a file in TFS version control, similar to the work item links explained in the TSWA 2005 FAQ.  Hakan responded with the details, which are shown below.

http://[TeamSystemWebAccessSite]/UI/Pages/Scc/ViewSource.aspx?scc-item=[ItemData]

ItemData is the HtmlEncoded form of the query string, such as “id=10&cs=-1”

• id: the item ID of the item in source control (you need to know this instead of the file path)
• cs: changeset number (-1: latest)

For example, if the file id is 151611,

    HtmlEncode(“id=151611&cs=-1”) -> “id%3D151611%26cs%3D-1”

So the URL would then be

    http://tswa.domain.com/UI/Pages/Scc/ViewSource.aspx?scc-item=id%3D151611%26cs%3D-1

We’re planning to provide more friendly URLs in a future version, similar to the wi.aspx approach.

I wanted to highlight the TSWA for TFS 2005 FAQ since it contains good information, including how to switch between Windows authentication and forms authentication, turning off forms authentication, and how to construct the URL to a work item using the work item's ID.

Visual Studio Team System Web Access FAQ

• Q: Can I install Team System Web Access on an existing Web site?
• Q: Which Web site port should I use for Team System Web Access Web site?
• Q: How can I activate the log file?
• Q: What’s the difference between Forms-based authentication and Integrated Windows authentication modes?
• Q: How can I switch between Forms-based authentication and Integrated Windows authentication modes?
• To enable Forms based authentication:
• To enable Integrated Windows authentication:
• Q: How can I enable sending work items as e-mail messages?
• Q: What’s the URL to use if I want to send the link of a specific work item?
• Q: How can I disable signing out and logging in as a different user (i.e., disable forms authentication)?
• Q: How can I customize the bug form?
• Q: Can I use Team System Web Access with Team Foundation Server in workgroup (non-domain) mode?
• Q: Can I use Team System Web Access with single server / dual server Team Foundation Server configurations?

[UPDATE 8/8/07]  There is now a KB article on this issue.

Hakan posted the following on Brian Harry's blog in response to a customer report about encountering the following issue when installing the new Team System Web Access release on German, French, Italian or Spanish Windows.  We plan to add this to the FAQ page.

Symptom:

You receive the following error while trying to install Team System Web Access.

System.Security.Principal.IdentityNotMappedException: Some or all identity references could not be translated.

(Spanish) System.Security.Principal.IdentityNotMappedException: No se pudieron convertir algunas o todas las referencias de identidad.

(French) System.Security.Principal.IdentityNotMappedException: Impossible de traduire certaines ou toutes les références d'identité.

Cause:

During the installation, we grant permissions to Network Service account for the Cache folder. On some non-English operating systems, the installer cannot locate the Network Service account because the account name is localized.

Affected Operating Systems:

This problem only happens when TSWA is installed on a German, French, Italian or Spanish Windows. Other Windows languages are not affected by this issue.

Workaround:

If you're installing Web Access on a Windows with any of the following languages: German, French, Italian, or Spanish; before running the installer, please follow the steps below:

1. Create a new local user group with the name "Network Service"

2. Add the localized network service account to the recently created "Network Service" group. Here's a mapping:

    German - NT-AUTORITÄT\NETZWERKDIENST

    French - AUTORITE NT\SERVICE RÉSEAU

    Italian - NT AUTHORITY\SERVIZIO DI RETE

    Spanish - NT AUTHORITY\SERVICIO DE RED

3. Run the TSWA setup.

We’re tracking this issue on our support forum:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1954637&SiteID=1