Installing Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2012

My experience installing Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2012 to house my business intelligence projects built in Visual Studio 2010:

I am installing TFS 2012 on Windows Server 2012. I am using Visual Studio 2010. I will be using the standard installation for TFS 2012 which gives you Source Control, Work items, Build automation, Test Management, a Data Warehouse, reports, and a SharePoint portal. It requires the SQL Server engine, SQL Reporting Services for the reports, SQL Analysis Services for the data warehouse, and Windows SharePoint Foundation for the team project portals. Everything will be installed on the same machine (if you want to scale out you would use the Advanced installation, or scale out later). Note there must be a SQL Server running on the machine before you configure the TFS installation.

Install SQL Server 2012. You must install all of these SQL Server features: Database Engine, Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search, Analysis Services, and Reporting Services – Native
I was installing SQL Server 2012 on a Hyper-V virtual machine with Windows Server 2012, which as not connected to the internet. During the SQL Server 2012 install, I got the error “Error while enabling Windows feature NetFx3.5”. I was able to continue the install, but when it finished I saw errors showing some features failed (but some features did succeed). It seems .NET 3.5 is required
I followed Installation of SQL Server 2012 on Server 2012 beta: NetFx3.5 is a Feature on Demand and ran the DISM command to install .NET 3.5
I reran the SQL Server install and selected the features that did not install the first time, and they all succeeded this time
Used the guide to help you along, such as Team Foundation Server 2012 Starter
Run the install for Team Foundation Server 2012 with Update 1 (tfs_server.exe on the DVD). This just installs the binaries, it does not require you to configure anything. It will install the .NET 4.5 Framework if needed
Once the TFS install finishes, you will be presented with the Team Foundation Server Configuration Center. I selected “Standard Single Server” and started the wizard
During the configuration of TFS, you will not be allowed to install SharePoint Foundation 2010 as SharePoint Foundation 2010 cannot be installed on Windows Server 2012. You will see the error “SharePoint Foundation 2010 can not be installed on Windows 8”, but with a checkbox allowing you to continue the TFS installation without installing SharePoint. See Team foundation server 2012 on Windows Server 2012 cannot install. You can always use SharePoint 2013 instead: Integrate SharePoint 2013 with Team Foundation Server 2012
I then went to Visual Studio 2010 (located on a different machine than TFS) and choose Team -> Connect to Team Foundation Server and entered the computer name where I installed TFS 2012, and I was able to connect to TFS. Note to use TFS 2012 with Visual Studio 2010, you need to to have Visual Studio 2010 SP1 installed as well as this fix
Now I needed to create a team project. You can only do this from Team Explorer within Visual Studio. But when I tried this within Visual Studio 2010, I got the error “TF30172: You do not have permission to create a new team project”. Turns out, this has nothing to do with security, but rather the fact that you cannot create a team project for TFS 2012 in Visual Studio 2010. You have to use Team Explorer within Visual Studio 2012 or install Team Explorer separately (via Team Explorer for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012). You can still use all the features of TFS 2012 in VS 2010, just not team project creation. See Permission error with creating a team project from VS 2010 on TFS 2012. Funny that I remember this same issue when trying to create a team project in VS 2008 for TFS 2010
When starting VS 2012, make sure you run it with Administrator permissions (right-click the icon for the program, and then click Run as Administrator) or you will get an error (TF218013) when trying to create a team project
Installed Cumulative Update 1 for Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1. Fixes these bugs
In Visual Studio 2010, create a workspace mapping. You should make the Local Path the location of your existing code. See Create and Work With Workspaces
I have a bunch of existing projects that I want to add to source control, so I want to add those local files to version control via Visual Studio 2010. Check out “To add a solution to version control” on Add Files to Version Control
Just repeat step 14 for all my projects, and that’s it!
Others who want to use a project in Visual Studio that I have uploaded to source control should open the project directly from source control. See Open Solutions and Projects from Version Control. What I usually do is Get Latest Version, Open from Source Control, and then bind the solution to source control when prompted
You can optionally install Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Update 1 Power Tools and various VS 2010 and VS 2012 extensions for TFS such as TFS Administrators Toolkit for VS 2010 and TFS Administrators Toolkit for VS 2012
TFS has a web interface (called Team Web Access) for viewing source and keeping track of bugs/tasks and the general status of your code and builds. There is not a way to upload source files via the web interface. The default URL is servername:8080/tfs
A Team Foundation add-in is installed into each of the following Microsoft Office products when you install any edition of Visual Studio 2012 or Visual Studio Team Explorer 2012: Excel (add or bulk edit work items), PowerPoint Storyboarding (illustrate user stories and requirements), Microsoft Project (plan projects, schedule tasks, assign resources, and track changes), Microsoft Project Server (enable data to flow from work items in TFS to tasks in enterprise project plans in Project Server)
The default process template installed with TFS is “Visual Studio Scrum”. For more info about this and other process templates, check out Choose a Process Template. Note that TFS has quarterly updates that will include updates to the process templates (download)
You may find these third-party TFS tools helpful: Urban Turtle, TeamPulse, InRelease, inteGREAT
It’s a bit confusing on how to add users to a team project group. This will help: TFS 2012 – Add Users to a Team Project Group
There is the ability to create extensions to the TFS web interface, called TFS Web Access extensions. I have not found many of these, but one good one is Team Foundation Task Board Enhancer
You will see SSRS reports that you can run listed under the “Reports” section in Team Explorer. The reports available on based on the process template you installed. For example, if you choose the “Visual Studio Scrum” template you will see these reports (also see Reports (Agile) or Reports (CMMI)). See Manage Reports
If in step 8 you installed SharePoint, the install (or manually if using SharePoint 2013) would of configured the Team Foundation Server Extensions for SharePoint Products so that SharePoint knows all about TFS 2012. You then configure SharePoint Web Applications in TFS 2012 and then configure a Collection Site. Finally, in SharePoint you create a new SharePoint site using a TFS template (referred to as a Team Project Portal). The site basically has the same features as Team Web Access. Once that is all done, any new Team Project you create will automatically create and activate the SharePoint portal