Team Foundation Server & and & and & and

During the past 2 years I installed TFS 2008 (Team Foundation Server 2008) at least 25 times most of it for testing and migration purposes. Same I had to do now for a migration scenario from two single installations into a multi-layer installation.

Since Service Pack 1 is out it's possible to install TFS 2008 on Windows 2008 (x-86) and as we know there is now Windows 20008 R2 out but there are no downloads for x-86. Therefore we have to take an earlier Version: Windows Server 2008.

The installation guidance describes exactly what you have to do to run the installation. You have to configure several files, need to adapt WML checks as I posted in my earlier post yesterday: http://netrsc.blogspot.com/2009/09/tfs-sp1-installation-problem.html

At the end of the day it worked beside the "Reporting Services" - as usual! I will try not to get emotional now but it should not be a problem for Microsoft to create installation files which are as easy to install as previous installations.

I mean how much effort Microsoft have to put to create an installer for the following setup:

• Windows 2003 Server Enterprise / Standard
• Sql Server 2008

Press 15 times enter, choose your servers and done - no they prefer to handle thousands of forum messages, emails, sending responses to blog post etc.

take 10 % of your communication efforts and put them into a normal installer for single and multi installations with new software.

I really hope Micorosoft consider this for the next TFS 2010.

Another feedback would be to create a personal version of TFS -> Mini Tfs which would fit to the express editions for home use :-)

TFS SP1 Installation Problem

For some testing I had to setup a Team Foundation Server with SP 1. To accomplish this mission I had to merge the service pack like it's described here:

1. To integrate the installation of Team Foundation Server and Service Pack 1
   Download SP1 from the Microsoft Web site, and save the update to a folder on the local computer. For example, you can save the file to C:\SP1Download.
2. From the files that originated on the DVD for Team Foundation Server, copy the AT folder to a location on the local computer. For example, you can copy the folder to C:\InstallMedia.
3. Open a Command Prompt window, and type the following command, replacing C:\SP1Download with the location that you chose in step 1 and C:\SP1Extract with a separate location on the local computer:
   C:\SP1Download\TFS90SP1-KB949786-ENU /extract:C:\SP1Extract
4. Create a folder where you can merge files from SP1 and the DVD.
   Type the following command, replacing C:\InstallMedia with the location that you chose in step 2, C:\SP1Extract with the location that you chose in step 3, and C:\MergeFolder with the absolute path of the location that you chose in step 4:
   msiexec /a C:\InstallMedia\vs_setup.msi /p C:\SP1Extract\TFS90sp1-KB949786.msp TARGETDIR=C:\MergeFolder
   Note:
   You must replace C:\MergeFolder with an absolute path, but you can replace C:\InstallMedia and C:\SP1Extract with absolute or relative paths.
5. From C:\MergeFolder (which you created in step 4), run setup.exe to install Team Foundation Server with SP1.

Now if you use Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 then you have to modify your hcpackage.xml (I attached my version at the end of this post). After some researches I could find this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969985 Once you have done this the following errors should not appear anymore:

• The selected instance of SQL Server is not compatible with Team Foundation Server 2008.
• A compatible version of SQL Server is not installed.
• The SQL Server Analysis Services assemblies are installed, but they are the SQL 2005 version instead of SQL 2008.

My modified hcpackage you can find here: http://www.ronischuetz.com/download/hcpackage.xml or download it: http://www.ronischuetz.com/download/hcpackage.zip