Categories: .NET

Tags: .NET, C#, TFS, Visual Studio

The new release of the TFS 2011 Beta comes with the Express edition. This edition is limited to 5 users but it can be a perfect solution for your home development environment. You don't need to install third party source controls and use application or plug-ins for Visual Studio integration.

I've started a new project and was quite tempted to try it. This is beta but this doesn't bother me too much as I this is not for any critical development.

First of all download the installation from this link: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/downloads#tfs-express

Next, after the installation is done you'll have to configure it:

The configuration didn't work. I need SP2 for SQL Express 2008. If you have the SQL Express 2008 already installed and if you follow the link form the error message you'll download the full SQL Server Express 2008 SP2. This is not just SP2. If you try to run it, it wouldn't update your existing instance. You'll have to install it as a new instance. I didn't like this because I wasn't sure if I install a new instance, will TFS use the new SQL instance or the old one. I have SQL Server 2008 R2 installed already and it didn't pick up this SQL instance. You wouldn't find just SP2 for SQL 2008 Express without full installation. You would need to install SP2 for SQL Server 2008 (not Express).

After installing SP2 for SQL Server 2008, run the installation. This time the configuration just warned me that the SQL Server will be updated. Happy with that, and after a while as it took more than 10 minutes, I have TFS 2011 Express up and running.

Now if you want to add a new project in Team Explorer you need to install Visual Studio 11 Beta Team Explorer. Download it from here: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/downloads#express

After installation open Visual Studio 11 Beta and add a new project

Next open the Visual Studio 2010 and add the project to the source control.

Bear in mind that when installing Visual Studio 11 Beta it changed my solution icon to the same as VS 11.

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