Upgrading to TFS SP1?
I've done a few lab-based upgrades to TFS SP1 and one production upgrade. I definately recommend you upgrade when you can fit it into your production support schedule. Although there are already many posts about the upgrade experience I will relay my few notes here...
- Make sure you have backups. I didn't in my lab upgrades and did for my production roll but thankfully didn't have a need for them.
- Install the Quiescence GDR on your TFS. This will make sure the TFS services aren't listening to requests during the upgrade process and avoid corruption.
- Install the TFS SP1 on your TFS. Note that the VS2005 and TFS SP1 installers are multifaceted; they will install updates for all of the related (in this case TFS) products that are covered by the service pack. The Team Explorer service pack is part of the VS2005 service pack and not the TFS service pack.
What happens if there is a problem? Hopefully there isn't but let me point you to a few problems that have been reported as well as my own added notes.
- Dave Glover has documented a potential issue when upgrading TFS Workgroup Edition. Basically, make sure you free up some Licensed User slots before you start the upgrade.
- Anthony Borton has more detailed instrcutions than my summary including things like uninstalling beta releases of the service pack.
- There are numerous different posts with problems and solutions to the SP1 upgrades in the TFS Setup Forums. One of them deals with TFS instances that have changed domains since the initial install - which indirectly helped my with my setup issue.
If you have SharePoint issues and/or have moved your TFS databases...
I did have one significant problem trying to get the Quiescnece GDR installed. The system was complaining that one of the the SharePoint databases (I think it was STS_Content_TFS but it may have been STS_Config_TFS) was not on the data tier. It told me to reinstall SharePoint as described in the documentation. The strange thing is that the Project Portals were working fine!!!
What I didn't know is that the server had been initially installed as a single-tier configuration and later someone modified it to be a dual-tier configuration. The move had succeeded so well that I didn't even know it had happened. But there was one part... a part required by the GDR/SP1 installer that had not been fixed.
In the TFS directory under program files there is a file called "MSIProperty.INI". This file records key installation settings and is used by the new installers to determine how to handle configure themselves. In my case the following keys had to be modified...
VSTF_DB_SERVER=[ComputerName]
VSTF_DT_MACHINE_NAME_LOCAL=LOCALHOST
I changed the boldface text from these two settings to the name of my data tier server and everything started to work. If you have a similar problem I hope this helps you!
Happy Holidays!