Adventures in TFS

Now that more and more teams are using Malevich (http://www.codeplex.com/Malevich), I am getting more and more TFS users. TFS had become quite popular at Microsoft because it integrates very nicely with Visual Studio, and of course DevDiv is using it (as they should) for dogfood.

TFS has many idiosyncrasies that Perforce does not, so occasionally I am getting bug reports for things that work nicely in Perforce/Source Depot, but not in TFS.

For a while, I was using CodePlex's Malevich enlistment for fixing bugs, but now that the bugs had become harder and harder to reproduce and require more and more setup, I decided to install my own version of TFS.

One thing that most TFS developers usually don't have to do, is TFS setup. Perforce is simple, really simple. You just copy an executable to a computer and run it - that's all. Well, you do have to open a port in the firewall, then the first time you log in, set up an admin account.

Here's what I had to go through to get TFS to work. Of course I was only working at home, at night, so a day is not really a day - it's just a few hours, sometimes even less.

Day 1. Try to install TFS on one of my servers. Discover that it does not work on 64-bit machines (huh???).

Day 2. Try to install TFS on one of my 32-bit servers. The setup at least starts now. If I use MYCOMPUTERNAME as a SQL Server target (the default instance is SQL 2008 on that box), the setup dies with many complaints about SQL Full Text Search not being installed/started/set up to start automatically. If I use '.' as an instance name, the installation goes through - up to the point where it wants a Sharepoint server. I don't have the Sharepoint server.

Day 3. I am turning on Hyper-V on one of my bigger servers. It's a dual Xeon5030 box, so 4 cores. Nice machine. Server 2008 installs almost instantaneously in Hyper-V, and the speed - I can't tell the difference. I also install SQL Server 2008.

Day 4. I have Sharepoint 2007 from MSDN, but it does not install on Server 2008. Need SP1. So I download Sharepoint 2007 with SP1. Install it. Trying to install TFS. No luck - the installation fails because it cannot find SQL Reporting Services. I am verifying - yes, reporting services are installed.

Day 5. I realize that when I use '.' it is finding a SQL 2005 instance brought in by Sharepoint. When I use MACHINENAME, it is finding SQL 2008 instance that I installed for it. SQL 2005 (that instance) does not have reporting services. SQL 2008 does not have Full Text Search as a separate service, so TFS setup is incapable to detect it. Google says I need SP1 for TFS 2008 to install on SQL Server 2008.

Day 6. Checking MSDN - MSDN does not have TFS with slip-streamed SP1. Google gets me an article that describes how to do it myself. The article is more than a bit imprecise, so I am reproducing the actual steps here:

• Copy the contents of TFS DVD AT folder to a directory, say c:\tfs\base (xcopy /die d:\at c:\tfs\base).


• Unpack the SP1 installer to a different directory, say c:\tfs\sp1 ( en_visual_studio_team_system_2008_team_foundation_server_service_pack_1_x86_x64wow.exe /extract:c:\tfs\sp1). Why does this have x64wow in its name despite the fact that it won't work on x64, wow or no wow - no idea.


• Slip-stream the sp1 (msiexec /a c:\tfs\base\vs_setup.msi /p TFS90sp1-KB949786.msp TARGETDIR=c:\tfs\slipstream)

You're done, the slipstream directory contains TFS 2008 SP1. The rest of the stuff on the TFS DVD (build, TE) is not slip-streamable, so just the TFS part is what you need. Make an image from this directory and voila - this will actually install on Server 2008 with SQL Server 2008!

I am trying to now create a new TFS project. I can connect to the server, but when I do try to create a project, it fails.

TF30004: The New Team Project Wizard encountered an unexpected error while initializing the Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Reporting plug-in.  

Explanation 
TF30171: The Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Reporting plug-in used to create the new team project could not be initialized and returned the following error: TF30224: Failed to retrieve projects from the report server. Please check that the SQL Server Reporting Services Web and Windows services are running and you have sufficient privileges for creating a project..  

User Action 
Contact your Team Foundation Server administrator.  

I am trying to investigate this. It turns out that I have no access to SQL Reporting services - I've installed SQL server as a local admin, and despite the fact that I've added Domain Admins, my user name, and everything to the admins, it did not work.

I decide that the easiest thing would be to just uninstall everything, and reinstall it from a normal user account.

Unfortunately, I start uninstallation from SQL Server. After I uninstall SQL Server, TFS installer crashes on uninstall. It looks like the VM is toast...

To be continued...