Currently I have lots of projects that are in TFS 2012 and would like to migrate them to TFS 2018, maintaining source code history as well as WIT status if possible. I realize that lots of things under the sheets has changed with versions prior to 2018. I would like to know what the proper upgrade path is. Various web sites have mentioned articles and upgrade paths, but none has answered the true question.
Do I have to do TFS 2012 -> 2013 -> 2015 -> 2018 and use the upgrade option at install time. Or can I skip any path all together. Also does the upgrade do the DB modifications in place, or can I copy the DB's somewhere and point to them at TFS version install time? If I am forced to upgrade in place will I loose current TFS functionality. This cannot happen.
Any rules guidance, steps or past experience in this matter would greatly be appreciated.
NOTE: We have made some changes to the standard WIT templates for the 2012 Agile process (TASKS, USER STORIES).
Sorry, afraid you will not find one complete guide in doing this for now. But suggest you could first go through the Requirements and compatibility page. This will help you know the server operating systems, support SQL Server version for each TFS version.
There are different considerations depending on your configuration,
e.g. do you use SharePoint, Reporting Services etc.
One thing that you
need to deal with, is that TFS 2012 and TFS 2018 does not support the
same versions of SQL server, so you will need to upgrade SQL during
the upgrade or move your collection(s) to a new server with the
appropriate version of SQL (see here).
Back to your question, not sure if you could upgrade directly from TFS 2012 to TFS 2018. Just find a related chart which showing the recommended upgrade paths from various TFS versions (For 2017). However, you definitely not have to do TFS 2012 -> 2013 -> 2015 -> 2018. The worst situation you need two paths.
I would recommend setting up a new server with SQL Server 2016 sp1, where you can migrate your databases using SQL backup. Then first install TFS 2017.1 followed by TFS 2018 and finally updating SQL Server to 2017 (if you need).
Highly recommend doing a trial migration first to validate that things work of and sort out the process before attempting it on your production server.
If I am forced to upgrade in place will I loose current TFS functionality.
Actually some old features will not support any more in TFS2018, such sharepoint, XAML build(the most important missing feature), old work item form. More details please take a look at changes to requirements for TFS 2018
For work item part, we recommend that you review handling a TFS 2018 upgrade from old form to new form for further guidance.
Besides if your TFS2012 installed on a not support system, you may have to first set up a new operating system.
Even though there is not a complete tutorial for TFS 2012 to TFS 2018 upgrade procedure by now. You could refer this article aims to expand on the Upgrade overview and give a step by step walk-through of the upgrade to TFS 2017. You just need to take care of some notes mentioned above.
The general process for upgrading an existing deployment of Team Foundation Server is to:
Prepare your environment. Such as upgrade your SQL sever
(required), operating system...
Expect the best, prepare for the worst. The single most important step you can take here is to ensure you have a complete and consistent set of database backups.
Do the upgrade!
Configure new features.
One can now upgrade from 2012 to TFS 2018 since the release Update 2 earlier this year. See the documentation for the updated upgrade paths.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/tfs-server/upgrade/get-started
A key challenge was migrating from older XAML builds to the new builds, but with the release of Update 2 and later you can utilize the XAML build controllers as they are now supported. See the compatibility guide for details.
Plan for downtime - this upgrade is certain to take longer than one from a more recent version!
Related
We have an old server machine with TFS 2012 installed on it. It has the 'DefaultCollection' of project collection. We want to copy (not move, i.e. leaving the collection in place) the 'DefaultCollection' collection to another machine which has TFS 2015 installed.
How can we do that please?
Thanks, ashilon
It depends a bit on how complicated your TFS installation is, but here are the steps for a simpler one server setup without Sharepoint:
Detatch the collection from your current TFS 2012 using the Team
Foundation Server Administration Console. This will copy the configuration into the collection database.
Take a full backup of the collection database (called something like Tfs_DefaultCollection) using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).
Restore the original collection on your TFS 2012 server
Re-attach the database on your TFS 2015 server using SSMS. Note that if you already created a collection on this server with the name DefaultCollection, you either need to delete/rename this or restore the cloned collection using a new name.
Attach the collection on your TFS 2015 server using the Team
Foundation Server Administration Console
Start the collection so that it get's into the Online state.
Please note that build servers, drop locations and so on will now point to same thing in the original collection and the clone collection, so you need to do a bit of cleanup.
The above is a shorter version of this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd936158(v=vs.110).aspx
Edit: I have successfully used the above approach to make a test migration from TFS 2010 to TFS 2013 RTM followed by the migration of our production environment. We use the server with the test migration for testing new updates before applying to production and we have done so with all updates from 2013 RTM until 2015 Update 3. I am currently applying the same approach in upgrading to 2017 in order to get a fresh server with never version of SQL.
I am testing web based products, and I am new to Microsoft tools. I am trying to figure out how test plan creation works, or can work depending on what configuration of Visual Studio tools I am using. I find a lot of conflicting info online.
I have the three tools below installed right now, but I can request something different if I need it. (Feel free to suggest). Any advice from pros more experienced with this tool set would be GREAT.
I access Team Foundation Server 2012 via my browser, where I can view and add product backlog items, bugs, sprints, the board etc. I cannot add test plans here, but I can add test cases to them.
I have Visual Studio 2013 installed on my PC. This seems like pretty much the same thing as the browser accessible tool, and I don't use it much because I find it easier to work from the browser for testing web.
I have Microsoft Test Manager 2012 installed on my PC. This appears to be the only place where I can create test plans, cases, and can create and utilize shared test case steps.
Questions:
How can I create test plans using the browser tool?
Is it possible to update the TFS 2012 Browser Tool to 2013, and how is that done?
Additionally to the #jessehouwing answer I would highly recommend you this free ebook:Testing for Continuous Delivery with Visual Studio 2012
Team Foundation Server 2012 update 2 adds Web Based test Case Management to TFS 2012, this is a smaller step than an upgrade to TFS 2013 all the way. You cannot just upgrade the Web Access part of a TFS installation, it would require a complete upgrade of the cluster. You also cannot just install this to your machine, it has to be installed on all the TFS servers in the cluster.
Traditionally Test Manager is the place to go to to do Test Suite Management and to view the results of a test run. Microsoft has started to move the functionality traditionally found in Test manager to the Web portal, It seems you're not the only person who found that easier to use. This transition started with TFS 2012 update 3 and was further expanded with TFS 2013.
So your options are:
Use Test Manager (you'll have to use it to manage certain things you cannot yet do on the web anyway).
Ask your Server Administrator to upgrade TFS 2012 to at least Update 2 (I'd recommend he upgrades to TFS 2012 update 4 or TFS 2013 in any case).
Ask your Server Administrator to upgrade TFS 2012 to TFS 2013.
The following resources can be very helpful in understandign how to use the tools to their fullest potential:
Visual Studio ALM Rangers' Test Guidance
Patterns & Practices' Testing for Continuous Delivery with Visual Studio 2012 (as mentioned by #Elena)
Microsoft Virtual Academy Software Testing with Visual Studio 2012 (exam 70-497 jump start)
VS 2012 has an excellent support for comparing database projects and databases.
I'm wondering if there is a standalone version for the respective software to use on a deployment machine - or some other way to use it without having to install the whole of visual studio.
You can install just the SSDT for SQL Project bits on a machine. That does not require a full install of either Visual Studio or SQL Server. You can generally keep an eye on the SSDT Blog for the latest release news. You can find that at: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ssdt/
At this time, the most recent release is the October 2013 release.
As noted in the various articles, you may need to make an Administrative Install Point if your target machine does not have internet access. Follow the instructions in the article and you should be fine.
I've written some articles about this on my blog at http://schottsql.blogspot.com if you look up the label for SSDT.
Does windows 8 supports visual source safe (or the other way around?)
Aka, can you install visual source safe running windows 8?
My advice is, don't go closer to Visual SourceSafe than you can spit a rat. VSS has NEVER worked right. Data corruption is all too common. When I worked as an independent consultant to Microsoft in the late 1990's and spent some of my time in Redmond, I found out MS's little secret. Virtually none of the Microsoft development projects used their own VSS. Their internal source code control in the early '90s was a customized version of the old RCS file-based system. They then bought source code rights to Perforce and created a customized version of Perforce for their own use. Now, at least since Visual Studio 2012, they only officially support their own Microsoft Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) and Git. Support for only those two has been built into VS 2012 and newer IDEs.
Again, even the Microsoft programmers joke about VSS being a "code destruction device." If you already have a honking lot of projects in VSS 6 (which IIRC was built in 1998 and discontinued in 2006), you might want to track down the upgrade to VSS 2005, which is rare, but at least "supported" to whatever degree until sometime in 2017. I also have no idea if either is compatible with Windows 10 (I've installed 6.0 on Windows 7) I'm not sure it's any better, and Microsoft makes it very hard to find full or upgrade downloads of VSS 2005 on their site, but I recall seeing a link for it on one of the MS forums. Search for it.
OTOH, if you are not welded to VSS and don't want to use either TFSC or Git, Subversion (standalone) is a very good alternative (CVS is a dead issue and is not being supported). My current client has development teams using either Git or SVN for their .NET (yuck) projects.
DISCLAIMER: My personal experience (as StackOverflow wants to see for opinion posts) covers 40 years as a top-level software design and development consultant for primarily Fortune 50 companies, during which I have used extensively just about every major COTS and open-source make utility, bug-tracker, and version-control system available. I was a primary beta-tester for the original PVCS (Polytron Version Control System), later bought by Borland. I have also written a proprietary text delta-based version control system for Dow Jones in the early '90s.
We've got it to work.
When it says you'll have to close all running program's it isn't just being nice.
Yes, and in windows 10 too.
Copy and paste VSS from other computer in any folder in new computer.
For register in VB60 ide, execute SSINT.EXE
Find an run .EXE in VSS folder for other opcions
Yes. It can be installed in Windows 10 computers too.
Where can I download that? All I can find is the express version. I bought the SQL Server Developer 2008, but the Studio wasnt installed along with it...
Thanks
SSMS is ALWAYS part of any non-express edition including DEV edition (I mean you dont need to download it seperately).
When you install SQL Server Dev. (or any other non-express edition), during setup process you will come across a screen where you can select which components to install (e.g. SSIS, SSRS, SSAS, BIDS, BOL etc). In that step you will need to select SSMS to get it installed.
For some reason if you have skipped that step you can run setup again and just install SSMS only.
But I dont think there is any seperate download available for "normal" SSMS.
This is an annoyance because access to SQL Server from a workstation is necessary and the only way (as previous posters mentioned) is to use the full SQL Server licensed installation package.
You'll run the setup to install as though you're installing the full database. In some cases, setup will detect that you'll need to first install some dependencies. When you come to the Feature Selection, you can select the Management Tools only.
http://i.stack.imgur.com/ochff.gif
You can download eval version from this link -
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/trial-software.aspx
The express edition are the free versions.
The express version is the free version. If you want another version you need to buy it. My best guess is that it is included in one of those packages on in the microsoft store.
EDIT
According to a forum:
I`m not sure what you mean - you ask
for Management Studio and there is a
download link for SQL Server
Management Studio Express.
Or will you buy a SQL Server Standard,
Enterprise or Datacenter Edition -
then you have the "normal" SQL Server
Management Studio.