if ( ! blogClogged )

TFS 2008 on Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn) - A Few Tips

If you go to install TFS 2008 on Longhorn here are two small recommendations. The install guide states that you need to install and configure and WSS 3.0 on Windows Server 2008 prior to doing the TFS install. This differs from installing TFS 2008 on Windows Server 2003 in that in that scenarios the install program will now do the WSS install for you. It is both similar and unlike a TFS 2005 install on Windows Server 2003 in that for TFS on Windows Server 2008 you must install WSS as you have done in the past but now you must also do a basic configuration. This means not only create an initial web application but also at least 1 top level site collection. The former made sense to me the latter did not since the managed path I created a top level site on and the managed path I told TFS to use are different. It doesn't appear that there is a technical reason that you must have at least 1 top level site collection created except that the install tries to validate that there is SharePoint services at the location you provide and thus if no site exists it fails that validation and won't move beyond.

So here are your few tips: when I installed SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services it was on port 80 of the default web site. I then installed WSS 3.0 and also let it be on port 80. I never had issue with this on Windows Server 2003 but I had lots of issue with this on Windows Server 2008. All sorts of security issues kept arising. Honestly, I never understood why I didn't have issue with this on Windows Server 2003 as well. So my recommendation is to setup WSS 3.0 for using a different port than 80 for it's site collections. If you do this you may not need my next tip.

Since the first time through I tried using SSRS and WSS both on port 80 I had too many issues and had to back up and punt. So I uninstalled everything (including SQL Server - trust me on this you want to do that and while you are at it go to c:\program files\[PATHTOSQLSERVERDATA] and delete the Microsoft SQL Server data directories) and started over. When you do this you get some remnants left in the applicationHost.config file that will cause you some grief late in the install process of TFS. Below is what you do about it - this comes from the MSDN TFS Setup Forums.

Longhorn Server (Windows Server 2008)

1. Problem: Error 32000.The Commandline '"D:\Users\VSEQA1\AppData\Local\Temp\\ConfigIIS.exe" -action:createvdir -name:services "-site:Team Foundation Server" "-pool:Microsoft Team Foundation Server Application Pool" "-path:'c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Services\"' returned non-zero value: 100
   Solution (Note: This will probably be fixed in the RTM version of LHS.):

   1. Launch elevated command prompt

   2. Run notepad %windir%\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config

   3. Remove the following section:
      <location path="Team Foundation Server/Services">
      </location>
      <location path="Team Foundation Server/Warehouse">
      </location>
      <location path="Team Foundation Server/Build">
      </location>
      <location path="Team Foundation Server/WorkItemTracking">
      </location>
      <location path="Team Foundation Server/VersionControl">
      </location>

   4. Save the file

   5. Execute iisreset

   6. Click retry on the TFS error message

Happy installing.