New Computer Modifications

Each time I get a new computer I find myself turning off certain services, uninstalling Windows features, and disabling certain components.  Windows 7’s default installation includes items such as: Tablet PC Components, Windows Media Center, Windows DVD Maker, Windows Media Player, and Windows Gadget Platform.  It also has System Restore and Hibernation enabled, neither of which I use.  The commands below are what I run to turn off or disable the above features (Run in an elevated Powershell command window):

Disable-ComputerRestore –drive "C:"
powercfg –H off
DISM /online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:MediaCenter /FeatureName:TabletPCOC /FeatureName:WindowsGadgetPlatform /FeatureName:WindowsMediaPlayer /FeatureName:MediaPlayback

You will need to restart your computer after running the above, but after doing so, you'll have more free CPU cycles and memory. Enjoy!

Essential TFS Process Template Modifications

Out-of-the-box TFS 2010 ships with two very solid process templates, and you can install the Scrum 1.0 template and the Scrum for Team Systems 3.0 templates as well.  However, there are two template modifications in the Agile template that are very useful.  The first is to modify the Assigned To field to exclude some of the TFS service accounts and duplicate values.

<FIELD name="Assigned To" refname="System.AssignedTo" >
<ALLOWEDVALUES expanditems="true" filteritems="excludegroups">
<LISTITEM value="[Project]\Project Administrators"/>
<LISTITEM value="[Project]\Contributors"/>
<LISTITEM value="[Project]\Not Assigned"/>
</ALLOWEDVALUES>
<PROHIBITEDVALUES expanditems="true">
<LISTITEM value="Project Administrators"/>
<LISTITEM value="Contributors"/>
<LISTITEM value="Not Assigned"/>
</PROHIBITEDVALUES>
<DEFAULT from="value" value="Not Assigned"/>
<ALLOWEXISTINGVALUE/>
<HELPTEXT>..snip..</HELPTEXT>
</FIELD> 

The other two modifications are to create initial states in both the Task and Bug work item types.  This can be done by adding the states in the work item type editor, editing the workflow to add the states, and then republishing the work items back to the server.  The flow on a bug would be modified to Created > Active > Resolved > Closed and the Task flow would be modified to a flow of Created > Active > Closed.

SQL Server 2012 RTM

SQL Server 2012 went RTM yesterday!  The evaluation is available for free or you can get one of the full versions from MSDN subscriber downloads.  One of the changes I'm excited about is that the Management Studio IDE has been integrated with Visual Studio, so we now have one development IDE for both application and database code.