May 2006 - Posts

Team Foundation Server Woes
28 May 06 07:38 PM | russnem | 4 comment(s)

I have been a long-time fan (since December, actually) of the source control features offered to developers in the form of Microsoft's Team Foundation Server. Making the move from SourceSafe proved to be fruitful in countless ways, particularly speed with regard to off-site developers.

Unfortunately I have to say that I'm ready to throw my laptop out the window, then go down and stomp on it a few times.

I had a solution that contained 17 projects (including 14 class libraries, two web sites, and one windows service) in a Beta 3 Refresh installation of TFS. Everything went fine during the past six months with regard to feature set and dependability of TFS, so I am MUCH more than just simply satisfied.

This morning I began the process of setting up a new development server with the release bits of TFS, and as part of that task I am required to move my solution over. This is where my troubles began.

I unzipped the solution directory, which contained ALL of the projects, to a new folder on my hard drive. I then shut off the old TFS server and chose to "permanently remove" (as Visual Studio put it) my solution from source control. That part went fine. It was only when I attempted to add the solution to the new TFS
server that my headaches began.

For the past 4.5 hours I have been dealing with the error that talks about how the solution cannot be added to source control because my solution "overlaps a project that is already bound to source control at a lower root".

But I already went in and did an "Unbind" for all projects within the solution when it couldn't find my old TFS server. I already went through and deleted all the .vssscc files from all the directories. I already went in to each one of the .csproj files and removed the XML sections that dealt with source control.

Now I can safely say that NONE of the projects in the solution contain any reference whatsoever to the old source control - as far as I know. And I know the following: all .csproj files have all references to source control deleted - those four XML tags that normally appear right at the beginning of the file. In addition, the .sln file itself has all references removed.

It would be one thing if the error message that told me that there was an overlap told me WHERE the overlap was. But I guess that would simply be way too easy. Therefore, I am in the position of having to prevail upon someone who knows TFS a lot better than I do and ask why this thing doesn't work. I have to ask why that error message about overlapping doesn't even OFFER me the chance to cancel out any previous bindings. I have to ask why the message that seems to be smart enough to tell me there are overlaps can't tell me WHERE these overlaps are.

So, I'm left with this question.

Can anyone tell me how I can insure that no source control parameters, files, metadata, things, ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc. have ANYTHING to do with my solution so that I can FINALLY get it into the new TFS? Any help or advice anyone can offer would be HUGELY appreciated.