Making Visual Studio TFS plugin store your credentials?

Question

Every time I open Visual Studio 2008, I get a pop-up dialog prompting for my username and password ('Connecting to Team Foundation Server'). Presumably this is because I have my TFS server stored in the Team Explorer tab, in Servers, so it wants to connect to it on startup. In addition, this happens when I open a solution file whose solution is associated with TFS source control, for obvious reasons.

My problem is identical to that described in various places on the web, such as:

• http://kevinsmi.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/getting-visual-studio-to-remember-your-tfs-credentials-on-windows-7/
• http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tfsgeneral/thread/186a469c-bc58-48c4-9db9-ffc2e0fedb11
• http://hastobe.net/blogs/stevemorgan/archive/2008/08/25/stop-visual-studio-prompting-for-tfs-credentials.aspx

In all cases I can see, the suggested solution is to add the TFS server credentials to Windows' stored credentials. I'm using Windows 7, so I think the way you do that is in the Credential Manager.

Well, I've added the TFS server with my credentials to the 'Windows Credentials' list, and I still get the prompt for my username and password when I open Visual Studio 2008. Anyone have any ideas as to how I can get it to login with my credentials automatically?

UPDATE:

I added my TFS server's computer name, along with my username and password, into the Credential Manager (before I just had its IP address). Now, VS2008 does load without prompting me for credentials... but VS2005 still prompts me for them, even though it has the exact same server registered in Team Explorer! Whatsmore, the server registered in Team Explorer is the server's IP, which was already stored in Windows Credentials, rather than the server's name. So this is still a mystery. Could this be some registry setting peculiar to the VS2005 version of the Team Explorer source control plugin? Where in the registry could I find this potential setting(s)?

Answer 1

Did you even try to access TFS web site and enter your credentials to IE? If you don't try, please try and check "Remember my credentials" checkbox. I think this can solve your problem.

Answer 2

I found another way, check this article http://blogs.msdn.com/b/granth/archive/2010/10/17/getting-started-with-tfs-hosting-from-discountasp-net.aspx and read Step 7, may be this can be answer your problem.

Answer 3

For Visual Studio 2008, entering the credentials in the Credential Manager as I described above seemed to work.

I entered the server's IP address instead of its hostname in Visual Studio 2005 too, and at first it still prompted me for the username/password on startup. However, it has now stopped doing so. Maybe something needed to timeout? All I can say is, Visual Studio's TFS plugin works in strange (and undocumented) ways.