Extract TFS Pending Changes to a zip file

19. April 2013 22:38 by Matt Wrock in   //  Tags:   //   Comments (0)
Our TFS server was down today and I needed to get a Shelveset to a tester. Playing with the Power Tools PowerShell CmdLets I was able to basically pipe my pending changes to a zip file and give that to the tester. Getting the Power Tools PowerShell Cmdlets If you have Visual Studio Update 1 or Upd... [More]

Easily Script Machine Reinstalls with Boxstarter

28. March 2013 08:56 by Matt Wrock in   //  Tags:   //   Comments (0)
Almost a year ago now I started this small project, Boxstarter.  The project has sustained many interruptions as I have had busy spurts at work and involvements with other projects. It has gone through some serious refactorings moving from a scrappy script to a larger codebase organized into a ... [More]

Is changing an API or design solely for testability a good practice?

29. January 2013 11:30 by Matt Wrock in   //  Tags:   //   Comments (6)
There is a personal story behind this topic that I want to share. About five years ago I heard about this thing called Test Driven Development (TDD). For anyone unaware of this, it is where you write failing tests first and then write “the code” later to make them pass. It immediately struck me as i... [More]

BigGit: Git for large and tall TFS Repositories

20. January 2013 05:07 by Matt Wrock in   //  Tags:   //   Comments (1)
I work in Microsoft’s Developer Division (devdiv). We are the ones that make, among other things, Visual Studio. Our source control is in a TFS Repository (we make TFS too). A very large TFS repository and likely the largest in existence. I really don’t know how big exactly. I do know that the porti... [More]

What to do when you cant access Sql Server as Admin

27. November 2012 03:05 by Matt Wrock in   //  Tags:   //   Comments (0)
This happens to me on a particular VM setup framework we use at work about every couple months and I always have to spend several minutes looking it up. Well no longer I say. I shall henceforth document these steps so I will never have to wander the internets again for this answer.Stop-Service mssql... [More]

Unit Testing Powershell and Hello Pester

15. November 2012 11:53 by Matt Wrock in   //  Tags:   //   Comments (1)
It has been a long time since I have blogged. Too long. I have changed roles at Microsoft moving to Cloud Developer Services and have taken on two new Open Source projects: Chocolatey and Pester, joining as a project committer to both. RequestReduce is still alive but has gone far under nourished. F... [More]

Released AutoWrockTestable: Making test class composition easier

16. May 2012 08:54 by Matt Wrock in   //  Tags:   //   Comments (0)
Late last year I blogged about a unit testing pattern I have been using for the past couple years. It’s a pattern that I initially learned from Matt Manela (@mmanela). I adapted the pattern to use Automocking with Richard Cirerol’s wrapper. Over the last week I have been working to plug this in to V... [More]

Turn off Internet Explorer Enhanced Security

9. May 2012 01:29 by Matt Wrock in   //  Tags:   //   Comments (0)
If you enjoy lots of dialog boxes that require you to take action before you can review any unique URL, then you will not want to use this: $AdminKey = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\` {A509B1A7-37EF-4b3f-8CFC-4F3A74704073}"$UserKey = "HKLM:\SOFTWAR... [More]

The Perfect Build Revisited

25. April 2012 16:52 by Matt Wrock in   //  Tags:   //   Comments (5)
About two and a half years ago I wrote a series of posts documenting the work my team had done to automate our build process. We had completed a migration from VSS to SVN and used a combination of nAnt and CruiseControl to facilitate continuous integration and push button deployments to any of our e... [More]

Released RequestReduce 1.8: Making website optimization accessible to even more platforms

15. March 2012 16:38 by Matt Wrock in RequestReduce  //  Tags:   //   Comments (0)
This week RequestReduce 1.8 was released expanding its range of platform compatibility along with some minor bug fixes. Key Features Released Syncing generated sprites and bundles across multiple web servers using sql server is now .net 3.5 compatible. Thanks to Mads Storm (@madsstorm) for migra... [More]

About Me

Hey thats me!

I'm Matt Wrock with over thirteen years of experience architecting scalable, distributed, high traffic web applications. I currently live in Woodinville, WA with my wife, two daughters, three dogs and cat. I work for Microsoft as a Sr. Software Engineer working in Cloud Developer Services. I'm also project founder and owner of http://www.requestreduce.org and a committer to http://chocolatey.org.

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