Jim Zimmerman - ASP.NET, MVC, Ajax and ORM

Sometimes when I need to re-sync my project source files in team foundation server, I have to delete the workspace and then get the latest project source files, but have always been frustrated that I have to get all projects from that tree even if it was from different branches.  Well one way to avoid that, at least within vista, is to delete the cache in your application data folder which caches you data in the folder:

C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\1.0\Cache

 You may not have the same nave Jim, but you get the idea.  I think in XP it is something like C:\Documents and Settings\application data\blah\blah\blah.

Anyway, when you delete all the data and then delete the files where they are stored locally you will get a fresh latest without having to mess up the rest of you tree for other projects in the same structure.

After I installed Visual Studio 2008 beta 2 (Orcas) and the new TFS explorer, I was trying to export my tasks to an excel file from Visual studio 2005 and encountered this error:

It says there is a problem with the installation of the Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Office integration components.   Luckily I was able to export the tasks to excel using Visual Studio 2008 beta 2, but now when I want to integrate with office and TFS I need to use the new beta.  I hope this is the only issue I run into, but I will keep you all informed as I run into issues.  Overall, I like the new beta, but am having a hard time figuring out when to make a new project use it as I will need to have all of my developers use it also for a particular project since we can't open the projects in both instances.

There are several gotchas when installing Team Foundation Server SP1.  I have to admit I was scared which is why it took me until the beginning of March to do it.  The big reason I wanted to do it was the improved support for accessing the source control and work items over HTTPS instead of having to give vpn access to my outside developers.

So I backed up all of my databases first, then I started to install SP1.  The first issue was that it alerted me that I needed to install KB919156 which is an update that prevents the database from becoming corrupted when upgrading if a web service is invaded to get source from the server while installing the update.  That's nice that they remembered to tell me that before hand.  So I downloaded that update and when trying to install it, I get this error, "Windows Sharepoint Services is not using the designated Team Foundation Server configuration database (STS_Configure_TFS).  To proceed, you must exit setup and uninstall Windows Sharepoint services.  Then reinstall Windows Sharepoint Services in accordance with the Team Foundation Installation Guide, and run setup again".

So I started to get a little concerned that if I uninstall Sharepoint, I could cause a lot of problems.  So I look up that error and I find out that I need to install the update under the TFSService user.  So I do that and get past that error, but then get a weird 28002 Error Unknown message.  I searched for that error and found this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/dglover/archive/2006/12/18/upgrading-to-team-foundation-server-sp1-workgroup-version-and-a-gotcha.aspx

Well it turns out that if you are running workgroup edition which has a max of 5 users and you happen to have all five users licenced that you need to remove one before installing and then add that user back after updating.

Thankfully after all that it worked perfect.  At least it did not show any errors and now my HTTPS access works great.  Getting HTTPS client access to work with Vista and XP is another story.  I will save that for another post.

Hopefully this will save people a lot of time and give them the confidence that they can update to SP1 without worrying too much.  Make sure you backup first though, you never know what could happen.