This release supports Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010. The following table provides links to access more information about each power tool included in this release.
Tool
Description
Alerts Explorer
A plug-in to Visual Studio, Alerts Explorer provides a graphical user interface that supports flexible subscription of alerts based on check-in, work item change, or build completion.
 
Team Foundation Server Backups
The tool can schedule backups for the following databases that your deployment of Team Foundation Server uses:
  • the configuration database
  • the database for each team project collection
  • the databases that Team Foundation Server uses in conjunction with SharePoint Products, if your deployment includes integration with SharePoint Products
  • the databases that Team Foundation Server uses in conjunction with SQL Server Reporting Services, if your deployment includes reports
 
By using the restore wizard included with this tool, you can restore your entire deployment to new hardware, or selectively restore team project collections to an earlier point in time.
 
Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Best Practices Analyzer
 
To launch the Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Best Practices Analyzer, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 Power Tools, point to Microsoft Visual Studio Best Practices Analyzer, and then click TfsBpa.exe.
Updated! A diagnostic tool with a graphical user interface 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.
Custom Check-in Policy Pack 
A supplemental set of four custom check-in policies to use to enforce software development practices during the check-in process.
 
Process Editor 
An add-in to the Tools menu, the Process Editor provides a graphical user interface for editing Team Foundation Server process templates inside the Visual Studio IDE. This tool also provides a GUI for viewing the values assigned to all fields defined in a project collection.
 
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 Windows Explorer from the Source Control Explorer context menu, and labeling files and folders in Source Control Explorer. You can also easily search for work items and be able to easily rollback changes in version control.
 
Team Foundation Power Tool (TFPT.EXE) Tool
A command line tool that you can use to work with files and directories under version control, team projects, and work items. Some commands display a graphical user interface when run.
 
Team Members
An add-in to Team Explorer, this tool allows you to organize users into sub-teams and access a number of collaborative tools, such as IM and email, sharing of queries and links, and downloading and installation of custom Team Foundation components.
 
Windows PowerShell Cmdlets for Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server
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
This tool provides an add-in to the Team menu and a folder under each team project node in Team Explorer. With this tool, you can create, apply, capture, set, and organize default work item templates.
Test Attachment Cleaner
With the introduction of Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 & Visual Studio Premium/Ultimate 2010, testers can author manual and automated Test cases, configure the different diagnostic data collectors (as part of Test Settings), associate the Test Settings with Test Plan/Suites and then execute these test cases as part of Test Runs. 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 2010, 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. The “Test Attachment Cleaner” addresses these issues by:
  1. Determining which set of diagnostic captures is taking up how much space AND
  2. Reclaiming the space for runs which are no longer relevant from business perspective.