Installing Team Foundation Server

Question

What are the best practices in setting up a new instance of TFS 2008 Workgroup edition?

Specifically, the constraints are as follows:

• Must install on an existing Windows Server 2008 64 bit
• TFS application layer is 32 bit only

Should I install SQL Server 2008, Sharepoint and the app layer in a virtual instance of Windows Server 2008 or 2003(I am already running Hyper-V) or split the layers with a database on the host OS and the app layer in a virtual machine?

Edit: Apparently, splitting the layers is not recommended

Answer 1

This is my recipe for installing TFS 2008 SP1.

There is no domain controller in this scenario, we are only a couple of users. If I was to do it again, I would consider changing our environement to use a active directory domain.

• Host Server running Windows Server 2008 with 8GB RAM and quad processor
• Fresh install of Windows Server 2008 32bit in a VM under Hyper-V
• Install Application Server role with IIS
• Install SQL Server 2008 Standard edition
  • Use a user account for Reporting Services and Analysis Services
• Create a slipstreamed image of TFS 2008 with SP1 and install TFS
• Install VSTS 2008
• Install Team System Explorer
• Install VSTS 2008 SP1
• Install TFS Web Access Power tool

After installing everything, reports were not generated. Found this forum post that helped resolve the problem.

• Open p://localhost:8080/Warehouse/v1.0/warehousecontroller.asmx
• Run the webservice (see above link for details), it will take a little while, the tfsWarehouse will be rebuilt

It is very important to do things in order, download the installation guide and follow it to the letter. I forgot to install the Team System Explorer until after installing SP1 and ventured into all sorts of problems. Installing SP1 once more fixed that.