ACS50016 Error- Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control Service

If you think you have configured the service identity correctly in ACS and have the right client certificates but still get below error, the cause is that your certificate format is not correct.
ACS50016: X509Certificate with subject 'CN=...' and thumbprint '...' does not match any certificates configured for Service identities

You should upload a .cer file with DER format for the service identity. If you uploaded a Base-64 format, it wont wont.

Microsoft Test Manager – How to Pause a Test and Resume Testing

Here is my TechNet article http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3925.aspx

Microsoft Test Manager - Update Test Settings

Here is a great source for updating the test settings in MTM http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aseemb/archive/2010/08/06/update-testsettings-utility.aspx

You can override public properties like Deployment Timeout using this.

You can also override the private properties like Script Timeout using Reflection. Please refer this thread for more info http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsmantest/thread/5a6f3af4-9e28-42d9-8830-f800969d8b28/

TFS 2010 - Build fails with error " Read permission is required to retrieve the content"

When the build fails with the below error, what does it mean:

TF215097: An error occurred while initializing a build for build definition \TeamProject\BuildDef: TF204001: The item $/TeamProject/BuildProcessTemplates/DefaultTemplate.xaml cannot be downloaded. Read permission is required to retrieve the content.

It means that the service account under which the build agent is running needs read access to the source control.

Received 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award!

I received an email from Microsoft that I have been awarded the 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award for my contributions in Visual Studio ALM technical communities during the past year. It is a pleasure to receive this award and I am very grateful to Microsoft.

Here is the link to my profile https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/profile=22555aef-9708-47fd-a2f1-bc660de3ebcd

TFS 2010 - Unable to stop build

I came across an issue where a build was stuck for days with the message:
There was no endpoint listening at http://machinename:9191/Build/v3.0/Services/Agent/282 that could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more details.

When I tried to stop the build, I was shown the error:
TF215104: Failed to stop build: it did not respond to a workflow cancellation request." When I went to the build agent and tried to delete the agent, I was shown the error:
Cannot remove build agent from build controller because it is currently reserved for a build
I unregistered the build service, tried to stop the build, registered the build service again and kept repeating the steps multiple times. I finally had luck and the build was stopped.
I registered the build service again and everything was smooth.

If you have write access to the TFS Warehouse, you can delete the build agent by following the steps at http://sleepcanwait.blogspot.com/2010/07/cannot-remove-build-agent-from-build.html 

TFS 2010 Test Controller - Disk runs out of space

You must have observed that the disk on test controller runs out of space pretty fast. This is because of the files being stored in localappdata%\VSEQT\QTController\TestRunStorage which never get deleted. There are two options:

Option1:
Add a key ControllerJobSpooling in \Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\QTController.exe.config and set its value to false. Then restart the test controller service.
Also refer http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shivash/archive/2011/01/21/using-visual-studio-test-controller-with-mtm-and-disk-out-of-space-issues.aspx

Option2:
Create a batch file with this command:
rmdir /s /q "C:\Users\<serviceaccount>\AppData\Local\VSEQT\QTController"
Then create a scheduled task which calls this batch file at regular intervals.