An approach moving VS2003/VSS projects to Team Foundation Server

I just finished a migration from Visual Source Safe to Team Foundation Version Control and thought I’d share some of my opinions about the process.  This post covers the overview and I’ll try to share my experiences as additional small separate focused posts.

Note that I am describing keeping your code in .NET 1.1 even though you will use TFVC as your version control repository; of course it is better if you have the luxury of moving your code to .NET 2.0 and all of the other great tools (including Visual Studio Team System) avaialable in that environment.

Here is the general approach I’ve used:

1. Evaluate all of the tools and make sure you’re comfortable with how things work before going into productionJ.  Although obvious, you should try this in a lab environment before going full-force into your ‘production’ development environment.
2. Download and install the tools that you will use going forward.  In my case this included compatibility tools to allow .NET 1.1 development with Team Foundation Version Control, including:
1. The MSSCCI provider for TFVC.  This plug-in allows you to use Visual Studio 2003 (or VB6 or VC++ 6, or …) with Team Foundation Server as a back-end for version control.  Download from: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=87e1ffbd-a484-4c3a-8776-d560ab1e6198&DisplayLang=en
2. “MSBee” to help using MSBuild and Team Build with the .NET 1.1 Framework.  Download from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/tools/msbee/default.aspx
3. I needed and you may also want some additional community build tasks to support your build process: http://msbuildtasks.tigris.org/
3. Install and configure the aforementioned downloads along with Team Explorer and Team Foundation Server.
4. Use VSS Converter to migrate your source control.  I’ll definitely have a post on my experiences on this subject.
5. Rebind your projects from VSS to TFVC.  Again, this merits a separate post.
6. Validate your applications including check-in, check-out, policy enforcement and anything else that will affect your daily development experience.
7. Once you’ve verified this in your lab environment, you can train all of your users and do it again in your ‘production’ development environment.

I’ve skipped over a lot of things that you should do in any TFS implementation, including selection and first-pass customization of your process template, which you should do before rolling into production.

Good luck with you migration and check back for more information!