What effects will stopping VS without saving cause the project in TFS? - tfs

I've got a project that I have in Team Foundation Server (TFS), on-premise. I've been trying, since yesterday, to check it into TFS. (I'm using TFVC, since I'm required to do so.) There's something wrong with the TFS server, as it is refusing to let me check in the changes. I was told by one of the TFS admins that I could remote to the server and restart it. Unfortunately, that is not true. I don't have the necessary privileges to remote to that server.
I'm wondering what would happen to the project in TFS, if I just close Visual Studio, while its stuck in the canceling check-in stage? For that matter, what will happen to the project in VS, while in this stage?

Just as Daniel said "Nothing bad will happen if you kill Visual Studio".
Generally the pending changes would not be checked into tfs and they would be preserved in your local workspace after killing the VS. So nothing would happen to the existing project in TFS.
Based on your clarification: Tried to re-open the project in VS. I'll be able to, but the TFS server isn't available. "... defaultcollection is currently unavailable"
Seems the TFS Server is down, just ask the admins to check if there are any services were stopped. Or simply restart the TFS server.

Related

Upgrade to TFS 2015.3 successful, but portal unavailable

Today we have installed update 3 to our existing TFS 2015.2 server. The offline installation ran for about an hour and completed succesfully. However when trying to reach the portal site, nothing shows up (well a 404 page shows up actually).
When opening the Team Foundation Server Administration Console, it correctly displays the expected product version: 14.102.25423.0 (Tfs2015.Update3). However when I click on 'Application Tier', it displays the text:
This feature has been installed but needs to be configured. Click on
Configure Installed Features to begin initial configuration.
This same text is shown on many other administrative pages. Is this the cause of the portal missing? When I configure these features again, will it not erase our current team projects, history, build definitions and work items?
Are there any better ways to troubleshoot why the portal is missing?
Thanks in advance for any guidance.
Yes, you are right. After the upgrade, the configuration is needed to make sure the normal operation of TFS server. It will not erase your current team projects, history, build definitions and work items. There are just some settings will not effect your Database. Certainly, it's also important to keep good backup habits. After all, we didn't have a foolproof thing in the world.
After you upgrade TFS to 2015, each team project may need to be
configured to use some of the new features in TFS 2015. You don't have
to do this immediately, but those features aren't available in that
team project until they're configured. Depending on the team project,
you'll use some combination of the Configure Features wizard that
appears on the Work page and some manual configuration.
Source Link: Upgrade your deployment to the latest version of TFS
For your situation, there maybe some other error cause it. However, still suggest you to finish the configuration first. If it's still not work, then you can try below ways to narrow down the issue:
Check the Event View in the server to see whether there are some
related info
Check the configuration logs (Team Foundation Server Administration
Console-Logs or browser the folder in the server
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Team Foundation\Server Configuration\Logs)

Can I utilize two different versions of TFS to manage source code?

I am not familiar with TFS, however the scenario that I will be coming across is that I will have a branch of source code stored in Visual Studio Team Services (was TFS Online) and locally I will be running TFS 2008.
Would there be any issues pulling the code from Team Services and merging with TFS 2008?
You won't be able to bind the code (solution and projects) to 2 different TFS servers. If you're using the online version of TFS what reason would you have of also trying to store the code in a local repository?
You definitely won't be able to merge the code between the different servers. TFS is a centralized version control system and merge operations need to be handled and tracked by the server.
You could theoretically Manage the code in one of the TFS servers (i.e. have the solution bound to TFS online) and manually manage the code in the other server. However TFS 2008 only supports local workspaces which means that it will make files read only if they are not explicitly checked out. This will cause you no end of pain.
Even if you did it the other way round (made the local TFS server the "master") you will almost certainly create yourself a load of problems as TFS simply isn't designed to be used this way
Also TFS 2008 is pretty ancient and unsupported.
EDIT:
The typical TFS workflow is.
Create a development branch on the server.
"Get" the code to a local folder on your dev machine (called a workspace).
"Check out" the files you need to modify from your branch or "Add" new files as needed.
You should regularly "check in" files to your branch to make sure your changes are saved on the server.
When your changes are complete then "merge" the code from the development branch back to the Main branch.
The code is stored and versioned on the server, but your changes are made on your local machine. To interact with the server you use the Team Explorer plugin in Visual Studio. Modern version of Visual Studio have Team Explorer built in.
If you're using the online version of TFS then you'll want to use Visual Studio 2012 or above.
If you're planning on Forking the code and do not plan on committing your changes back to the server, then you're probably better off using something like Git. You could use Git-tf or Git-TFS to pull changes from TFS and then that would make merging a lot easier and you could use your local Git Repo to manage your own changes

TFS 2013: Remove obsolete build controllers/agents not visible in admin

We have upgraded our TFS from 2010 to 2013, and the same time moved the TFS and databases to new servers, with new names.
One of the very few annoying effects (Probably due to moving the TFS to a server with a new name) is that the build controller/agent from the old server is still visible in lists of available build controllers/agents, but is not visible in the admin gui for build configurations and therefore not possible to remove.
Does anyone have had the same experience and furthermore have a solution of how to remove the traces of old (and not used/wanted) build controllers/agents?
Kind regards,
J
Ok.
Sorry, I found the solution myself now after continue searching and yet again scanning through the microsofts documentation! :)
It's possible to disable and delete controllers and agents through the Manage Build Controllers in Visual Studio.
Also described here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330987.aspx
Just make sure there is no builds in progress, but that's ofcourse also possible to handle through Manage Queues in Visual Studio.

Upgrading TFS 2010 to new machine with a different name - What happens client side?

I have the following TFS upgrade scenario: I'd like to change my current TFS 2010 environment to TFS 2012 - this by moving the 2010 server to a new machine with another computer name.
Therefore I simply use the backups of the TFS 2010 databases from the old server and restore them on the new server. Before starting the backup I will turn off several TFS specific services on the old machine to avoid check-ins from devs. In the meantime the developers are working in offline mode. Afterwards I'm going to upgrade the databases.
Now it's getting interesting: The TFS 2012 is up and running with the upgraded project collections and everything works smoothly, but what happens to the local workspaces which are linked to the old TFS url? Is it possible that the developers can switch their exisiting workspaces with their pending changes to the new TFS 2012 url?
If yes, how can I do that? I've already did a test installation and upgraded to 2012 successfully, but I can't find out how to bind my existing workspaces with my pending changes to the new TFS. Initially I thought that the "Change Source Control" dialog could do the trick, but everything I'm able to click in the toolbar are the "Bind/Unbind" and "Refresh" buttons...
If no, I guess I have 2 options:
All I can do is forcing everyone to check-in/shelve and create a new mapping for the new server
OR
simply keeping the old TFS name/url? (Are the pending changes still available in this case?)
Thank you in advance!
P
Workspaces are stored on the server, so when the users add the new server they should find their old workspace already setup for them. Complete with all their existing checkouts etc.
If this doesn't work for a user, they can map a new workspace to the same directory, checkout all files in the tree, then use the tfs power tools do to a uncheckout unchanged (tpft uu /noget) to only leave their changed files checked out.

Backing up TFS manually because TFS/Sharepoint Integration is hosed

After an ill-advised DCPROMO on our TFS server, and subsequent demotion, TFS continues to work but the SharePoint integration is totally hosed. SharePoint app pool refuses to run as a "Network Service" and so does SQLEXPRESS service. Unless there is some way to fix this, which I have not been able to find, I would like to totally re-install Windows Server 08 and TFS on our server. However, while trying to create a backup plan, I received an error relating to the fact that TFS cannot access MS SQL because of permissions issues. I would like to reliably and manually back up all TFS source control/history (I'm not worried about SP stuff at all, we haven't used it yet) and then restore it after I've re-installed stuff. Is this possible?
If you haven't really used ssrs/sharepoint etc you should be able to fairly easily detach any project collections and just migrate their databases to the new server. Each project collection only has one database normally named Tfs_{CollectionName}. The move the database to the new server with TFS already installed on it, restore the databases and attach them in the management console. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd936138.aspx
Otherwise the recent versions of the TFS Server Power Tools have added a backup tab to the TFS management console which should be able to run you through making a backup. http://blog.hinshelwood.com/creating-a-backup-in-team-foundation-server-2010-using-the-power-tools/

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