Team Build 2010 software requirements for VS 2008 clients - visual-studio

One of our TFS 2010 requirements is to support software projects that still use Visual Studio Team System 2008 for development. My question is whether a Build Server based on Team Build 2010 can compile 2008 code by itself. I mean connecting to TFS 2010 using Visual Studio Team Suite 2008, which means we are planning to install the Forward Compatibility Update on all development machines.
We have an existing TFS 2008 system and according to that the build server requires VSTS 2008 to be installed in order to compile code and run automated tests. I would assume the same for TFS 2010 where VS 2010 Ultimate should be installed in the build server, but we are not sure whether VSTS 2008 is required "as well" in this use case.
I hope someone could share their thoughts about this. Thanks.

As long as you install;
Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite,
Visual Stduio 2008 Team Explorer
VS2008 SP1
and 2008 GDR forward compatibility pack next to Visual Studio 2010 on the buildserver, Team Build 2010 can compile and unittest 2008 solutions. There are however some known issues with Workflow projects, so install VS 2010 and TFS 2010 SP1 and test your solutions.

Related

How to connect to visualstudio.com TFS using Visual Studio 2008

I have some requirements that I need to use Visual Studio 2008 for a new SSIS package. But we are using visualstudio.com as our source control because we were allowed to use Visual Studio 2012 for our main project.
I tried following the instructions here http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/get-started/connect-to-vs.aspx and here how to open Team Explorer in Visual Studio 2008 and no go.
Has anyone been able to connect to their TFS server at visualstudio.com from Visual Studio 2008? If so, how did you do it?
Officially VS 2008 is only supported against TFS 2013 (and Visual Studio Online) by using the MSSCCI. However, in practice it still works fine without MSSCCI, MS just no longer tests this particular scenario, so it's not guaranteed to continue working.
Make sure you have the appropriate updates installed, you need:
VSTS 2008 Team Explorer
VS 2008 SP1
TFS 2012 Compatibility GDR
Order of installation is very important. Refer to this article.
Moreover, if you are still having issues connecting to TFS after successfully installing above mentioned updates, consider clearing your IE browsing history (all checkboxes) and retry.
Per MSDN you can access version control on Visual Studio Online with Visual Studio 2008 using Team Explorer for Visual Studio Team System 2008 and MSSCCI 2013.

Differentiating Between Visual Studio Versions

I need to figure out which version of Visual Studio 2008 is installed on particular computers.
Is there a way I can differentiate between Visual Studio Team System 2008 vs Visual Studio 2008 Development Edition?
Are there particular files installed for one that are not installed for the other?
To Clarify my question, I would like to differentiate between:
Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Architecture Edition
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite
I think the registry would be your best bet. I've found the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\InstalledProducts
Under this there's a key for each product installed:
Crystal Reports
...
Microsoft Silverlight Projects
...
Team Explorer
Team System - Database Edition
...
I don't know whether there's enough there to go on to uniquely identify each version, but it might get you most of the way there.

Upgrading from Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

What are the steps I should do and everything I should consider when upgrading from Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate?
Where can things go wrong?
Consider the fact I'm using TFS 2008 and have Continuous Integration and Nightly Builds on build machines.
One big Problem are Unittests with autocreated Private Accessors. If you want to touch them you have to rewrite them...
The issue is described Here

TFS 2008 to Build VS 2010 Projects - what version of VS should go on the TFS Server?

I need to get VS 2010 projects that are using Visual Studio Tests building on a TFS 2008 build server. I didn't want to have to install VS 2010 but am now willing to do so after trying the advice one person posted here:
http://www.richard-banks.org/2009/11/how-to-build-vs2010-solutions-using.html
and some other posts I've found but am still getting errors from the VS Test dlls.
What version of VS 2010 do I need to install to support builds with VS Tests for a TFS 2008 build server?
I was able to get VS 2010 projects to build using TFS 2008 source only by installing Team Foundation Server Build and Team Foundation Server 2010 Build agents. I also had to install Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008.
I followed the advice here as well to set TFS 2008 build agent to use .net 4:
http://www.richard-banks.org/2009/11/how-to-build-vs2010-solutions-using.html

Can Visual Studio 2008 work with Team System 2005?

I would like to upgrade my team from VS2005 to VS2008 without touching the version of Team Server which is 2005.
Is that possible?
And if so, how do I tell VS to recognize TFS?
Currently in my VS2008 options menu, I don't have any source control to choose from.
VS 2008 works fine with TFS 2005. There are a couple of exceptions in the Team Build area (which changed massively between 2005 and 2008) but otherwise you will be able to do everything you need to do from the Visual Studio 2008 client.
You need to ensure that you have the 2008 version of the Team Explorer installed to add TFS functionality into Visual Studio. The 2005 version only installs into Visual Studio 2005. To download the 2008 version see the following link
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0ed12659-3d41-4420-bbb0-a46e51bfca86
Note that if you have previously applied SP1 of Visual Studio 2008, then you will need to run it again once installing Team Explorer.
For what it is worth, I would encourage you to upgrade to TFS 2008 on the server side as soon as you can. TFS 2008 works fine with client connecting from Visual Studio 2005 machine but it has some significant performance improvements and the Team Build functionality is much improved.
Yes, you can... (We're doing that here too)
Tools -> Connect To Team Foundation Server
"Add..."
Enter IP / hostname
Yes, that works fine. If you install the Team Foundation Client from the TFS 2008 DVD on your VS machine, you can connect to both TFS 2005 and TFS 2008 servers. If you don't have access to a TFS 2008 DVD (note that the trial should be fine), installing the 2005 client on VS 2008 should also work, but I've never personally tried that.
Do you have the Team Foundation Client installed?
If you have the Team Version it should be residing in the TFC folder on your installation DVD. (I don't know why it isn't an option in the installer)
It is also possible to download the TFC from Microsoft (for free), there is an SP1 version on Microsoft Downloads.

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