How to schedule a Team Build

Team builds in TFS2005 do not have a built in automated scheduler available.
Yes, that’s right you read correctly – the tool billed as a continuous integration platform does not provide an easy way to schedule the build types out of the VS environment – that’s crazy!

However, there is a command line tool “TFSBuild.exe” that you can use to start a build.
Therefore you can manually create a windows schedule to kick the build off at set times and here is a quick step guide if you are having problems with this:

1. In the source control folder for the team build type, create a .bat file (e.g. My
2. insert the following in the bat file and check it in:
   TFSBuild start http://192.168.1.x:8080 ProjectName “Build Type Name”
3. Log onto the TFS box and get latest from source control on the team build type
4. Go to Start -> Programs -> Accessories ->System Tools ->Schedule Tasks
5. Set up a new schedule task to run the bat file
6. Ensure that the “Start in” path is set to “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE”

In TFS 2008 this has been addressed and options are available on the right click of the build type in the Builds menu to facilitate this.