Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

1. As the TFSBuild command utility needs a number of parameters in order to start a
build, you first need to determine the parameters to be used, as follows.
a. Team Foundation Server – The TFS URL where the solutions being built
are checked in.
b. Team Project – The name of the team project which you want to build.
c. Build Type – The build type that you created using the Build Type Wizard in
Step 1.
d. Build Machine – The name of the build server that you want to use for
building your project. This is an optional parameter; by default, it uses the
build server specified in the team build type.
e. Build Directory – The path to the directory where the build occurs. This is an
optional parameter; by default, it uses the path specified in the team build
type.
2. Create the build command as follows:
TfsBuild start
If you plan to override the build machine name and build directory path specified
while creating the build type, the command would then be as follows:
TfsBuild start
/m: /d:
Step 3 – Test the TFSBuild Command Line
In this step, you test that the TFSBuild command is working correctly.
1. Open the Visual Studio command prompt
2. Type the TfsBuild command that you created in Step 2.
3. Review the output to make sure that no errors occurred and that the build was created
successfully.
Step 4 – Create a Batch File
In this step, you create a batch file that will be used for scheduling the builds.
1. Open Microsoft Notepad and type following command; please note that the full path
to the TFSBuild.exe file is specified so that it can run from Windows command
prompt. The following is an example of the command:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\TFSBuild" start
If you override the build machine and build directory path, the command in the batch
file would be as follows: