Basic Team Explorer usage questions

Question

Hello,

We are setting up a new TFS 2008 implementation as our first usage of TFS for source control. We have several projects in Visual Studio 2003, 2005 and 2008, as well as other script/non-Visual Studio based projects.

My question is, for the Visual Studio 2003 and 2005 projects do we have to install Team Explorer 2003/2005 and make use of them to add projects to source control and to check out/in files, or, can we just use Team Explorer 2008 to add projects and check in/out files? The thought being that the developer could use 2008 to check out any thing and then open the appropriate visual studio version to work on their local instance of the project before then checking it back in using team explorer 2008 within their local visual studio 2008 application.

The concern is that by using team explorer 2008, that visual studio 2008 might impose changes on the older systems solutions dll or control details.

Thanks for any guidance.

Answer 1

This is possible. I have colleagues who are using Team Explorer for non-code files (Word documents, help files, etc.) and use it like they would VSS or any other SCC.

As an added bonus, I'm pretty sure that TFS Server 2008 is backwards compatible to at least 2005 (haven't run against 2003 in awhile). IIRC, I've run VSTS 2005 For Developers against a 2008 TFS Server.

I would double-check for you, but I've recently recently re-imaged my dev machine and haven't re-installed 2005 (working on new stuff!).

As an aside, I've found TFS to be a huge timesaver as far as the whole dev process. The IDE integration is top notch, and the linked bug/task tracking and changesets, with alerts, notes, built-in queries and reports had me wondering how I ever got along w/o it.

HTH.

Answer 2

The Team Foundation Client for VS 2005 and VS 2008 can be installed side by side so there's no issue there (there isn't one for VS 2003, but you could probably use the MSSCCI provider).

You can however, if you want to, do all of your source control operations in VS 2008 (or the Windows Explorer extensions in the latest power tools) but work on the projects from VS 2003/2005 without any issues. You just need to make sure you don't accidentally open the project files from within VS 2008 because that will upgrade the project format.