Limitations of using VS2010 Professional with TFS 2010 Basic?

Question

I'm currently in the process of investigating TFS 2010, as it's been agreed that we'll be getting VS2010 Professional when it's released and it comes with TFS Basic (we're currently stuck with VSS, and were considering moving to SubVersion prior to the TFS Basic announcement).
I've downloaded an installed the Beta 2 of TFS 2010 and installed it using the Basic installation, which I'm led to believe is what the actual TFS Basic would be equivalent to. I configure it all, install the Team Explorer into Beta 2 of VS2010, and begin nosing around. I see lots of interesting looking options, and turn on one for my test project that says Check-in Policy - Code Analysis. I then try checking in something to that project, and a little dialog pops up saying

Evaluation of Code Analysis Policy requires Visual Studio 2010 Premium Beta 2 or Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 to be installed

However, I can't find any reference to this or other limitations online anywhere. The MS VS 2010 feature comparison page gives all three versions 4 stars for TFS product features, and the pages I've read on the limitations of TFS Basic only say it lacks Sharepoint and Reporting capabilities.

Am I missing something here? Is there an article somewhere on the limitations, or perhaps some confusion between a product TFS Basic and a basic install of the full version?

Answer 1

Sorry this is so confusing. Few things first of all.

VS 2010 Professional with MSDN comes with TFS. Not just TFS "Basic" but a full server license to TFS and a CAL (client access license) to access it. When you install TFS you can then pick what installation option you require. You can go for "Basic" which configures all the pre-requisites for you (such as IIS, SQL Express etc). Or you can go for Advanced if you want the more traditional TFS installation where you can install IIS, MOSS, full SQL Server with reporting services etc first and then install a full TFS that is integrated with these products. You can think of "TFS Basic" - as "Easy TFS". It's the same TFS, just easy to install (including on non server operating systems such as Windows 7 etc). You can move your project collection created on a basic installation of TFS to a full blown TFS installation in the future if you find you outgrow the basic installation.

Check-in policies are bits of client side code that run every time you perform a check in. The particular one that you selected actually runs some features in visual studio to do with code analysis. The problem you are running into is that those features are only available with the premium editions of Visual Studio and is not included in Professional. The feature on the TFS (server) side is just being able to run check-in policies. The feature on the client side is what the check-in policy is calling. Confusing I know.

My tip with check-in polcies would be to not enable them at first and switch them on gradually (see http://www.woodwardweb.com/vsts/policy_override.html for my rationale behind this).

Hope that helps.

Martin.