Deleting work item in TFS using Visual Studio 2010

As I was setting up TFS (Team Foundation Services) for my upcoming SharePoint project, I created few work items such as Tasks, Sprint Backlog, Bugs etc. also created custom fields and values within them. To test these items, I created a few test work items before moving it to live. Now, I wanted to get rid of the test work items I created before I could log live data in it. So here comes this post, where I would write on how we can delete work items from TFS. So, first of all, there is no simple tick and delete UI from Microsoft which does so. Microsoft recommends using command line to delete the work items. There are some free tools available through few of the sites, but I prefer deleting using command line. Follow the steps below:

• Open Visual Studio Command Prompt by navigating to Start > All Programs > Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 > Visual Studio Tools
• Note down the IDs of the work items you want to remove from the TFS
• Within the command prompt type the below syntax:

witadmin destroywi /collection <your TFS site collection> /id:<id>,<id>,<id>

Note: For noting down the IDs of the work items you can run a query that has ‘test’ in the Title field, provided you have entered test while your testing.

Resetting Sync databse within SharePoint

Resetting Sync database will delete the database completely with all the values in it.

I think one should reset the sync database as the last thing when all troubleshooting tricks provide no result. Only consider resetting when: 

• Your import user profile connection is fetching details from AD but they cannot be seen on SharePoint
• Similar scenario with export connections, so you want to push changes back to AD but you don’t see any changes on AD
• You have modified settings on your FIM Client manually 

Here is a very nice article on resetting the sync database you should follow before considering a  reset:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff681014.aspx#resetSync

PS: The User related information such as Profile Pictures, About Me etc. resides in Profile DB and the Social DB, these information will be safe as you do a reset of your Sync database

The tool was unable to install Application Server role. Web Server (IIS) role

While installing SharePoint 2013 onto Server 2012, I came across an error as “The tool was unable to install Application Server role. Web Server (IIS) role”. After browsing internet for resolution, I finally could resolve my issue. But while doing my investigation into the error, I came across posts where different people have tried different things to resolve the same error. I will try to collate those and post it in one single post.

Option 1 :

Go to Server Manager and click on Add Roles and Features

Select and expand Web Server (IIS) Role 

Select the IIS 6 Scripting tools under Management Tools within Web Server role

Click Next until the wizard finishes

Rerun the Pre-requisite setup and see if you have been able to resolve the error.

Option 2: (only for Windows 2008 R2)

Go to command prompt and run this command:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -i –enable

Option 3:

Run powershell with admin priviledges

Run the following commands: (I mounted my Server 2012 ISO on D drive)

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,NET-WCF-TCP-Activation45,NET-WCF-Pipe-Activation45

Add-WindowsFeature Net-Framework-Features,Web-Server,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-App-Dev,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Net-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Health,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Log-Libraries,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Http-Tracing,Web-Security,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Mgmt-Compat,Web-Metabase,Application-Server,AS-Web-Support,AS-TCP-Port-Sharing,AS-WAS-Support, AS-HTTP-Activation,AS-TCP-Activation,AS-Named-Pipes,AS-Net-Framework,WAS,WAS-Process-Model,WAS-NET-Environment,WAS-Config-APIs,Web-Lgcy-Scripting,Windows-Identity-Foundation,Server-Media-Foundation,Xps-Viewer -Source D:\Sources\sxs