Install and configure TFS 2012 Express on a standalone server

 

Prerequisites

Use Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard SP1 computer (a virtual machine as well) with most recent required updates.

Install application server role (full IIS support recommended).

Create two OS accounts for TFS services (recommended): TFS service itself and TFS build service.

Download TFS Express ISO image (<450MB)

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/downloads#tfs-express

and attach it to TFS server (as Image or as burned CD).

Setup

Start tfsexpress if not launched automatically.

Accept the license and install.

Setup starts.

Confirm automatic restart of the server if required.

After server restarts, the setup continues.

Setup will try to download latest updates after succeeded finish (will fail if there’s no internet connection available).

TFS service configuration

After setup wizard closes, the next wizard starts automatically – the configuration wizard.

Confirm wizard start.

Change TFS Service account context (recommended) using TFS Service account created above – click “Change”.

Enter account name and password, check entered data clicking “Test”.

Change default port number (8080) if required.

Verify changes made or continue directly.

Pre-configuration starts.

Start final configuration with “Configure”.

Configuration finalizing starts.

After configuration finishes continue with “Next”.

The final screen displays the URL to access TFS service (here http://tfsexpress:8080/tfs).

Click on the URL brings opens internet browser (here Internet Explorer, confirmation to unblock web address may appear).

Click “Add” to include the TFS service URL in the list of trusted URLs.

The Web frontend of TFS Service opens.

The wizard can be closed. Alternatively TFS build service may be configured from now.

TFS build service configuration

Continue the wizard with “Next”.

Change the project collection if not the default collection is to be used.

Configure number of build agents.

Change TFS build service account context (recommended) using TFS build service account created above, click “Test” to verify entered data.

Ensure test of entered account data succeeded, continue wizard.

Confirm the configuration settings or verify if required.

After validation of the settings start configuration with “Configure”.

Configuration starts.

After configuration finishes finish the setup with “Next”.

Review setup summary on the final screen.

Finalization

After TFS build service configuration finishes check the summary on the final wizard screen and close the wizard.

TFS express administration console open immediately.

From now you can start to use your fresh TFS express instance and enjoy it!

Another way to check database version before automatic deployment

With VS2008 (GDR) / 2010 / 2011 you may use automatic deploy scripts built with VS and based on vsdbcmd.

If you track the database version inside of your database (for example, in a separate table), you may need to check the current database version before incremental update – in some cases you may support the update only for dedicated versions and above and not for older versions.

You can force deployment break in the pre-deployment script after check for database version – if the database version is not supported for update:

--- get database version from current database

select @CurrentVersion =[PARAM_VALUE] from [MySystemParameters]
   where
   [PARAM_NAME] = 'DBVERSION'

--- check the version and break the deployment if the version is not supported

--- the sample is simplified: in real life you will check major version, minor version, build number etc.

if not ( @CurrentVersion >= @MinSupportedVersion)
   begin
      raiserror ('Current database verison is not supported and cannot be updated',18,0)
      set noexec on
   end

When you start the script on the target box, the deployment break looks like following:

Enjoy!

TFS 2008 Problem: Unable to connect to the Windows SharePoint Services

Assume, you plan to create a new TFS project using TFS 2008. Everything goes well up to the last step - then an error dialog appears saying “Unable to connect to the Windows SharePoint Services at <URI>”:

The reason is, the TFS instance cannot create the Sharepoint Portal for the project. More information is to find in the error log file on the TFS server.

Most popular problem are changed connection properties to Sharepoint instance (for example, port number). In this case the log file contains message, that the server rejects the connection on used URI.
(We discounter this error due to uncoordinated change in Sharepoint configuration, where the port number was altered in mistake).

OK, two things to take away.

1. Show the current TFS settings.

Log-in to TFS server, got to the TFS program files folder, the to the “Tools” subfolder – here you find the TfsAdminUtil: administration utility for TFS.

Start it using following command line:

TfsAdminUtil configureconnections

You see all the important current settings for local TFS instance:

2. Change required setting

For this task TfsAdminUtil offers set of keys/options:

For example, use /SharepointAdminUri: to change Sharepoint Administration URI:

TfsAdminUtil configureconnections /SharepointAdminUri:http://myserver:myport/_vti_adm/admin.asmx

Think about full path to the administration service file (.asmx), not just admin site URL!

Use TfsAdminUtil to view changed settings as shown above, restart TFS server and enjoy!