The update for VS2008, called General Distribution Release (GDR), allows you to:
“The GDR enables teams to use TFS 2010 even if part of the team uses the 2008 client. Some new functions will require the 2010 client. However, the GDR lets you use the 2010 server to perform the same functions that you were able to perform in the 2008 client.”
Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=CF13EA45-D17B-4EDC-8E6C-6C5B208EC54D
Further information
Unsupported scenarios in VS/Team Explorer 2008 when working against a TFS 2010
(found here)
- Creating new team projects
- Destroying Work Items or Work Item Type and Renaming Work Item Type,
- Uploading Process Templates
- Uploading Work Item Definitions
- Uploading TFS Field Mapping for Microsoft Project
Screenshots of a successfull installation of Team Explorer 2010 according to the Team Foundation Installation Guide 2010.
Part 1: Installation




Part 2: Creating a new team project




Screenshots of a successfull installation of Team Foundation Build Service 2010 according to the Team Foundation Installation Guide 2010.
Installation



Screenshots of a successfull installation of Team Foundation Server 2010 according to the Team Foundation Installation Guide 2010.
As prerequisite make sure you configured the following components for use by TFS:
Part 1: Installation

Part 2: Post-Install Configuration
Note: These screenshots show the “Advanced” wizard option. There are also “Standard” and “basic” wizards available.
Part 3: Validation

Screenshots of a successfull installation of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 according to the Team Foundation Installation Guide 2010.
Part 1: Installation

Part 2: Post-Install configuration

Screenshots of a successfull installation of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) from SQL 2008 according to the Team Foundation Installation Guide 2010.
This step required the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 to be installed.
Part 1:Installation

Part 2: Post-Install Configuration


Screenshots of a successfull installation of Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 according to the Team Foundation Installation Guide 2010.
During this process you will add:







Screenshots of a successfull installation of SQL Server 2008 according to the Team Foundation Installation Guide 2010.
In this case TFS is installed in a dual-server configuration, meaning:
- Data Tier: containing SQL Server and Analysis Services
- App Tier: containing Reporting Services, Windows SharePoint Services and TFS itself
Installation
Note: In the sceenshots a new SQL instance is added to an existing database server.

Problem description
Team Project creation fails on the Team Foundation Server itself due to insufficient permissions although the user has all neccessary permissions in SQL Server Reporting Services (Content Manager role) as well as Windows SharePoint Services.
or
A red X is shown next to the Reports and Documents node when running Team Explorer on the Team Foundation Server itself.
Further obervations:
- You can access http://<server>/reports without problems.
- You can access the SharePoint Central Administration without problems.
- Creating team projects with Team Explorer from other machines work fine.
Workaround
Follow the steps outlined in the following KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861
Downloads:
Additional information:
TeamCompanion, the popular Outlook plug-in for TFS, adds pretty wide command icons to Outlook’s mail window ribbon bar, as you can see here:
Before:

You can control it using the following registry entry:
Key: HKCU\Software\Ekobit\TeamCompanion.Outlook
Value: DisplayButtonCaptionsInRibbon (DWORD) must be 0 (= hide captions)
After:
Currently Visual Studio runs as a 32-bit process on 64-bit Windows operating systems.
Rico Mariani knows why and posts why he wants to "load less, not more".
A small side note: TFS 2010 will support 32 and 64-bit Windows on the server side.
Symptoms
You notice that in your SQL databases directory the .LDF files are growing permanently.
Solution
Set the recovery mode of your SQL Server databases to 'simple'.
Step-by-step instructions
- Perform a full-backup of your SQL Server databases.
Note: This is very important since switching from the full or bulk-logged recovery model to the simple recovery model breaks the backup log chain. Therefore, it is strongly recommend to back up the log immediately before switching, which allows you to recover the database up to that point. After switching, you need to take periodic data backups to protect your data and to truncate the inactive portion of the transaction log. [Source]
- Switch recovery mode of SQL databases to SIMPLE.
(See also: What is simple recovery mode?)
Important Note:
"The Simple recovery model lets you restore the database to the point from which it was last backed up. However, this recovery model does not enable you to restore the database to the point of failure or to a particular time." [Source]
- Shrink the transaction log (.LDF) files.
- Perform a full-backup of your SQL Server databases.
Optionally you can use a script for the steps described above:
Ed Hintz points out that this is easily done with TFS Power Tools and wrote about it in 2007.
- In the Source Control Explorer, right click on a parent folder that contains the pending change and choose, “Find in Source Control”.
- Choose "Status…".
- Press the Find button. (optionally you can type in a user and\or wildcards if you want to narrow the search)
- You will be presented a “Find in Source Control” window.
- Select the pending change and press the undo button OR right click Undo…
- Done.
When adding items to source control a list of excluded folders as well as file extensions is shown. You can customize those defaults in the registry.

Matthew Mitrik has the details:
If the add operation is successfully completed, the list will be saved to the registry.
Order of finding masks to filter:
- HKCU\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\[Version]\TeamFoundation\SourceControl\AddOptions\ExcludeMasks
- HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\[Version]\TeamFoundation\SourceControl\AddOptions\ExcludeMasks
(Thanks to Rich and Matt)
Anti-virus software can badly impact the performance of your Team Foundation Server. Therefore make sure the following folders are excluded from scanning for viruses:
- TFS Version Control Cache Folder
- Team System Web Access Cache Folder
- SQL database folders
- SQL backup folders
Additionally Microsoft published virus scanning recommendations for:
(Thanks to Wes to pointing me at those three articles.)
Question:
How can I make sure that the "Remaining Work" field is set to 0 when the work item is closed (for example when associating a work item during checking-in)?
Short Answer:
You can achieve this using the <COPY> rule on the transition to the "Closed" state.
Step-by-Step instructions:
- For the desired transition (in this example from "Active" to "Closed").
- Add a field reference to "Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.RemainingWork"
- Add a new rule of type "COPY"
- Choose From = "value" and enter value = "0"
- The resulting XML should look something like
- Verification: After transitioning a task work item from "Active" to the "Closed" state "Remaining Work" is set to zero.
Applies to:
Security Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (KB971092)
Symptoms:
The update installs successfully and but will be offered again by Windows Update as a new update. This can be repeated indefinitely.
or
the standalone installer tells you that this update "does not apply, or is blocked by another condition on your system".
Workaround (found here):
- Download the stand-alone version of VS90SP1-KB971092-x86.exe.
- Start the installation VS90SP1-KB971092-x86.exe
- Wait for the error message to come up – do not close the window
- Copy the temp. folder where the patch has been unpacked to a new folder, for example onto your desktop.
- Close VS90SP1-KB971092-x86.exe that you started in step 2.
- Navigate to {Program Files}\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools and find vsvars32.bat.
- Change the permissions on the file to allow everyone to edit it.
- Start VS90SP1-KB971092-x86.msp from within the saved folder and the process should complete.
- You may want to reset permissions that you gave in step 7.
When starting Visual Studio it automatically tries to connect to your TFS, which can be very annoying if you work offline. You will probably see:
TF30331: Team Explorer could not connect to the Team Foundation server ...
You can turn this auto-connect behavior off by setting the following files in the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\TeamFoundation
"AutoLoadServer" = 0
Zero means do not reconnect automatically.
Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/hippietim/archive/2006/03/14/551320.aspx
Downside: you now always have to manually connect (from Team Explorer’s toolbar)
P.S. The Team Foundation Power Tools (TFPT) include a feature called Tweak UI which offers a checkbox to set this registry key – however in the October 2008 version it has a bug (creaing a string value instead of DWORD) and therefore will not work.
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