Software, Technology, TFS

Use TFS 2010 from Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Posted on by Praphulla Parab in Software, Technology, TFS

During the upgrade to TFS 2010, we discovered that there were a few projects in Visual Studio 2008 SP1, and the project teams could not afford to upgrade to Visual Studio 2010. So, we had to make Visual Studio 2008 SP1 connect to TFS 2010.

We had to install the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010. This enables VS 2008 SP1 to connect to TFS 2010. After installing the patch (on some developer machines, we had to do a restart), we followed the steps below to connect to the TFS 2010 server:

  1. In VS 2008, go to Tools -> Connect to Team Foundation Server.
  2. Click on the Servers button, and then click on the Add button.
  3. In the Team Foundation Server Name text box specify the full path of the TFS team project collection. This is of the format – http://tfsservernameorIP:port/tfs/CollectionName. The default collection has a name of DefaultCollection. This format is necessary and VS 2008 will throw an error if you do not enter it correctly. If you do not know the full path, open VS 2010 on any machine, and connect to the TFS server. Select the required Team Project Collection in Team Explorer and look at the Properties window. You will see the full path as the value of the Url property.
  4. Since, you have entered the protocol (http or https) and the port in the full path, the Connection Details section on the Add Team Foundation Server dialog box is disabled. So, no inputs are required there.
  5. Click on OK and then on Close. You should now be prompted for authentication (if required), and the Team Explorer window should display the required team project collection contents.

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