By default WebDeploy/MSDeploy will clear the target before deploying the new files. In most cases this is preferred it will help to avoid “works on my machine” issues and generally to keep all your environments more similiar. You can instruct WebDeploy to not delete existing files on the server from MSBuild using the following MSBuild …
WebDeploy/MSDeploy Quick Tip: Keep existing files during deployment Read More »
By default WebDeploy parameterizes all the ConnectionStrings in the web.config for a project. This always confuses developers when they are first converting over to parameterization from config transforms. You can open the resulting MSDeploy package zip file and the parameters.xml file to find parameter entries for each of your connections string with the name: [connection …
WebDeploy Parameterization Tip: Disable automatic ConnectionString parameterization Read More »
I have had the incredible opportunity to work with Microsoft employees and contractors over the last 8 weeks on an evaluation of Release Management (RA) vNext and attend the 2015 Connect() conference in New York. So I wanted to share some of my opinions on VSTS, RA and Microsoft direction for other’s benefit. Background We …
From time to time a developer will ask for help with Parameterization where they just can’t seem to get it working for some specific scenario. Often this is just an XPath bug or fat finger issue. In two seperate instances now simply deleting the existing parameter node in the parameters.xml and recreating it solves the …
These days one of the things I focus on most is the feedback loop for the teams I work with and support. In the past we just lived with the fact some code couldn’t be tested or tested easily and would waste untold hours in all the ceremony of deploying it out to a server …
Six months ago we started looking into finally upgrading our 2010 TFS instance at work to 2013. After several months of research and issues Microsoft released the CTP of TFS 2015 so we decided to go all the way to the bleeding edge. We expected this to be a pretty quick project but like most …
TFS 2010 to 2015 Upgrade: CodedUI Feature Test Builds Read More »
A few months ago I mentioned a bug we found in MSDeploy v3 around the CommandTimeout attribute and a workaround to avoid it. I honestly think we may have been the first developers to find it because very few know how powerful MSDeploy.exe really is and use it beyond its more popular wrapper WebDeploy. It …
We had the issue described here at work last week with SlowCheetah and multiple transformed XML files to be deployed via a Setup Project. After digging through the SlowCheetah and Microsoft MSBuild scripts I still haven’t found the SlowCheetah fix yet but will keep trying. In the meantime, I did find a workaround. Workaround Steps …
Workaround – SlowCheetah Bug #124 (Multiple XML transformed in Setup Project) Read More »
We decided to make the jump to MSDeploy/WebDeploy Parameterization for changing our configuration files in lieu of Config Transformation a few weeks ago. This was a tough decision as I had grown fond of and evangelized Config Transforms for so long. Config Transforms served us well for several years but at the end of the …
We have developed a diagnostics framework we use to get some quick diagnostic information about our applications like whether a database or web service can be made. It’s a server/app configuration smoke test of sorts. Over time we’ve added further capabilities to it like checking registry entries exist, file/folder permissions and web/machine.config values. Our latest …
Don’t use HostingEnvironment.ApplicationHost.GetSiteName() Read More »