Visual Studio 2015 automated tests with TFS 2012 - tfs

We are in the process of upgrading from TFS to 2012 to TFS 2015, however the test team is ready to move to Visual Studio 2015 automated tests. They currently have a number of VS 2012 automated tests they run in VS 2012 agents/controllers.
Given the configuration changes in Visual Studio automated test controllers/agents in Visual Studio 2015 (compared with VS 2012), will automated tests created in Visual Studio 2015 work with TFS 2012?
I know VS 2015 no longer utilizes test 'controllers' but relies on TFS 2015 to control automated tests. If I read this TFS compatibility article correctly: When you are using TFS 2013, you must use VS 2013 test controllers and agents. Or to put it another way, you cannot use VS Test agents against TFS 2013. Is this correct? And can I assume the same is correct for 2012?
To ask another way: If the test team has to use VS 2015 for automated tests now, can this be done without TFS 2015?

Use TFS 2013 test controllers/agents with TFS 2015 if you need to maintain the existing capabilities for running tests out of MTM.

Related

VS 2019 and older versions of TFS

What versions of TFS does Visual Studio 2019 work with? At work we're still on TFS 2015. I'm concerned that might be too old to work with VS 2019.
Visual Studio 2019 works with Azure DevOps Server 2019, TFS 2017, TFS 2015, TFS 2013, TFS 2012 and TFS 2010 SP1.
Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releases/2019/compatibility#team-explorer-azure-devops-server-and-team-foundation-server
I assume it works with TFS 2018 as well, even it is not mentioned in the article.
For Visual studio 2019
use TFS 2019 (New name: Azure DevOps Server 2019) update 1.1 for server
And local you do not need install anything just use VS 2019
Download SERVER TFS Update 1.1

Upgrading TFS from 2012 and dealing with the Xaml build server

We are currently running TFS 2012 with a 2012 build server and would like to upgrade to the latest TFS.
According to this link, 2012 Xaml builds are only compatible up to TFS 2013. However this link says that TFS 2018 update is compatable with Xaml builds. Would I be able to use my existing build server? Would I need to upgrade the current xaml builds that we use?
This can be confusing, so let me break it down a bit:
In general, a given version of TFS supports XAML build controllers for:
The current version
The previous version
TFS 2010 (for legacy reasons -- build servers running Windows XP, for example).
So, for TFS 2012, you can expect it supports TFS 2010 and TFS 2012 XAML build controllers.
TFS 2013 should support 2010, 2012, 2013.
TFS 2015 drops support for 2012 XAML controllers. This is also the last version for which a XAML build controller was released. TFS 2017 and TFS 2018 do not include a new version of the XAML build controller.
Therefore, TFS 2017 supports XAML build controllers for:
TFS 2010
TFS 2015
TFS 2018 RTM and Update 1 did not include XAML build support. XAML build support was reintroduced in Update 2, with the same compatbility matrix as TFS 2017.
XAML build is long-deprecated at this point. As soon as you are stabilized on a version that supports the new build system, you need to start migrating off of XAML build.

How do you integrate Visual Studio Web tests in TFS 2017 U2?

Installed TFS 2017 U2 and I can see one of new features is that Visual Studio Test is one of the available tasks in Release management but I can not find any guidance how to integrate Visual Studio webtests into that. Is it possible now properly incoporate WebTest straight up from TFS UI?
No, Visual Studio Test task is using vstest.console.exe to execute tests which is documented at VSTest.Console.exe Command-Line Options.
To run a web test you need to use Visual Studio and MSTest.exe. For more tutorial about the integration of web test and TFS, you could refer below links:
Guide to get started with Visual Studio Web Load Testing and
Automation
Running WebTests as part of a VSTS VNext Release pipeline

TFS 2015 Upgrade Questions

I'm currently running TFS 2013 on one Windows Server 2012 box and TFS Build 2012 Update 4 on another box. My question is if I upgrade my TFS Build Server box to utilize TFS Build 2015, will I need to upgrade my TFS 2013 Server as well?
Also, what about the opposite? Can I upgrade my TFS 2013 server to TFS 2015 and still use my existing TFS Build 2012 Server which is using web deploy to build and publish to various other servers on our network?
Yes, TFS Build 2015 and Build vNext require your main TFS server to be at least 2015.
The other way around, TFS 2015 can talk to Team Build 2010, 2012, 2013 as well as the new 2015 build agents of course, as long as they're updated to their latest service pack and update version.
Upgrading your TFS 2012 build server would not be too hard either, depending on the amount of customizations made to the build workflows.

Advantages of TFS 2012 Build Agents vs TFS 2010 Build Agents?

I am testing the compatibility between TFS 2012 Source Control and TFS 2010 Build Agents, and I am glad to inform that they are compatible. I am wondering if there are any advantages to using TFS 2012 build agents. At this point, I have not found any information on advantages of using TFS 2012 build agents.
The 2012 build agent support the new Unit Test Runner, Lab Management environment, .NET 4.5 building, improvements in CodedUI, capability to trigger tests on a 2012 test agent, 2012 version of Code Analysis, improvements to Code Coverage and many many other things.
The main reason to support 2010 build agents, is to allow you to upgrade TFS from 2010 to 2012 without having to big-bang upgrade all build agents. When the next version of TFS comes, it will support the 2012++ and the 2012 build agents. It will no longer support the 2010 build agent.

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