Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 RC

John Nierenberg My name is John Nierenberg and I’m a Program Manager for Team Foundation Server (TFS) where I work on the Work Item Tracking and Project Management features for TFS as well as the compatibility of previous versions of Team Explorer with our latest release.

The compatibility experience has continued to improve between TFS 2010 Beta 2 and RC. Good progress has been made on the Visual Studio Team System 2005 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010. It will be available around the same time that TFS 2010 ships.

A more complete description of our compatibility scenarios and recommendations as of Beta 2 here: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=166507

There are a few important things to know for TFS compatibility at RC.

  1. Team Foundation Server blocks older clients without Forward Compatibility Updates.
    • Customers who use Team Foundation Server 2010 with older clients will not be able to connect to connect without a Forward Compatibility Update or using a newer client. The error message when adding a server from an older client does not always inform the user that they need the Forward Compatibility Update. In most upgrades, the customer will receive a message with the location of the Forward Compatibility Update. During new client to server connections, the customer receives an error that the server could not be found. It is therefore important for administrators to provide directions to the update.
    • Install the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010.
    • Use Visual Studio 2010 side by side with Visual Studio 2005.
  2. Testing using the VS 2008 client with the forward compatibility fails unless you are connected to a Team Project. A fix will be available for this issue soon under KB 980216.