Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Power Tools

This release supports

Visual Studio 2013, including any update
Team Foundation Server 2013, including any update

If you need previous versions of the power tools, you can go to the 2012 version on VS Gallery, or to the download center for version prior to 2012.

Compatibility

The TFS Power tools consists of a few tools that can only be run on the server (such as the Best Practices Analyzer), but the majority are exposed through the Visual Studio IDE.

To run the server power tools you need to install the power tools on the TFS Application Tier, and the server of the Power Tools need to match the version of your TFS server.

On the client however you need to match the version of the TFS Power Tools with your Visual Studio client. If you have VS 2013 installed, you need to install the TFS 2013 power tools. Regardless of which version of TFS you are targeting. To clarify, here are some examples:

VS 2013 connecting to TFS 2013: Install TFS 2013 Power tools

VS 2013 connecting to TFS 2012 or TFS 2010: Install TFS 2013 Power Tools

VS 2012 connecting to TFS 2013: Install TFS 2012 Power Tools (since the power tools need to match the VS version)

For the full details on compatibility see the MSDN article "TFS 2013 Compatibility and Dependencies"

Prerequisites

Best Practices Analyzer: install on the TFS Server (Application Tier)

Process Template Editor: VS Pro and up

Other: Team Explorer or VS Pro and up

Note: VS Express users download Team Explorer for free to use the power tools (except for the Process Template Editor)

Best Practices Analyzer

A diagnostic tool that you can use to perform the following actions:

Verify that the deployment for Team Foundation Server is configured according to recommended best practices
Identify the source of problems in an unhealthy deployment
Take a snapshot of the configuration of a deployment
Obtain usage data about the volume of data stored or accessed in the past 14 days. Includes specific information about database tables that have a tendency to grow and that may need to be reduced in size.

Check-in policies

A Visual Studio add-in, located under the Team | Team Project Settings | Source Control menu. It adds the following checkin policies:

Policy	Description
Custom Path Policy	This policy scopes other policies to specific folders or file types
Forbidden Patterns Policy	This policy prevents users from checking in files with fobidden filename patterns
Work Item Query Policy	This policy allows you to specify a work item query whose results will be the only legal work items for a check-in to be associated with

Process Template Editor

A Visual Studio add-in, located under the Tools menu. The Process Template Editor provides a graphical user interface for customizing work items (field, workflow and the form) and process templates.

Storyboard Shapes

This tool enables you to create shapes for the PowerPoint storyboarding add-in with custom resize logic.

Team Explorer Enhancements

This tool provides additional Visual Studio menu options and functions to support finding files under version control by status or wildcard, opening a folder using File Explorer from the Source Control Explorer context menu, and labeling files and folders in Source Control Explorer. Clone builds definitions easily and copy work item paths. Collaborate and share with your teammates within Visual Studio using the new Team Members page in the Team Explorer tool window. You can communicate with your team through instant messaging, share queries and components, create workspace templates, and track your sprint progress.

Note: Some of the enhancements (such as the clone build definition) only work when its pane is docked. If you have undocked it (and became its own tool window), first dock it into Team Explorer. You can safely undock the pane again when you have completed the command

Team Foundation Power Tool Command Line (tfpt.exe)

A companion tool to “tf.exe” that offers additional version control commands, work item tracking, and team project manipulation. Some commands invoke a graphical user interface when run.

Run tfpt.exe /? to find a list of the supported commands:

Command	Description
addprojectportal	Add or move portal for an existing team project
addprojectreports	Add or overwrite reports for an existing team project
annotate	Display line-by-line change information for a file
bind	Convert VSS-bound solutions into TFS-bound solutions
branches	Convert, reparent, list, and update branches
builddefinition	Clone, Diff or Dump build definitions
buildprocesstemplate	Manage build process templates
connections	Modifies Team Explorer client connection settings
createteamproject	Create a team project
getcs	Get only the changes in a particular changeset
online	Pend adds, edits, deletes to writable files
query	Query for work items
review	Review (diff/view) workspace changes
scorch	Ensure source control and the local disk are identical
searchcs	Search for changesets matching specific criteria
treeclean	Delete files and folders not under version control
unshelve	Unshelve into workspace with pending changes
uu	Undo changes to unchanged files in the workspace
workitem	Create, update, or view work items

Test Attachment Cleaner

The execution of a Test Run (whether automated or manual) generates a bunch of diagnostic data, which may be captured either automatically by the system or manually by the tester. This diagnostic data is critical in eliminating the “no repro” bug scenarios between the testers and developers. However, the downside of this rich diagnostic data captures is that the system/user generated diagnostic data, over a period of time, can grow at a rapid pace and start taking up database space.

In Visual Studio 2013, the database administrator has little or no control over what data gets attached as part of Test Runs. For example, she has no policy settings to limit the size of the data capture, or how long to hold the data before initiating a cleanup. This tool addresses these issues by:

Determining which set of diagnostic captures is taking up how much space AND
Reclaiming the space for runs which are no longer relevant from business perspective.

Windows PowerShell Cmdlets

This tool provides a Windows PowerShell interface that supports basic version control commands and a pipeline and glue to enable scripting.

Windows Shell Extensions

This tool provides integration with Windows Explorer and the common file dialogs. With this integration, you can perform many source control operations without having to run Visual Studio or a Team Foundation command-line tool.

Work Item Templates

A plug-in to Visual Studio, this tool provides an add-in to the Team menu and a new section on the Work Items page in Team Explorer. Use this tool to create new work items with default values, or to easily apply values to existing work items.