Error when connecting VS2008 to TFS2010

When connecting Visual Studio 2008 to TFS2010 you must have the following update installed “Visual Studio Team System 2008 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 interoperability”

If you are using “Local Database Cache functionality in Smart
Device projects” the “Microsoft Synchronization Services for ADO.NET 1.0 for Devices” must also be installed.

The Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is a required prerequisite to install the above updates.

After installing you must use the complete Url to the TFS2010 Server, and leave out the trailing slash. if the URL contans a trailing slash a message “Unable to switch servers at this time. Team Explorer is busy.” will appear several times. And end in a dialog box  with the message “Error in the application”

For more information about the limitations of a 2008 client with a 2010 server see “Compatible Matrix for 2010 RTM Team Foundation Server to Team Explorer 2008 and 2005”

Connecting to TFS2010 from a Webpart

With the implementation of Team Foundation Server 2010 the need for some integration with SharePoint 2010 was needed. Just to test the TFS API a simple webpart for registration of User Stories from SharePoint was created.

New to the TFS API I discovered that connection to the Project Collection needed a ICredentialsProvider (Fallback).  The UICredentialsProvider works fine in Windows Applications but when using the web, this provider can not be used…

The first step is to create a new Interface that uses the NetworkCredential class to return the credentials

public class NetworkCredentialsProvider : ICredentialsProvider
    {
        private readonly NetworkCredential credentials;
        public NetworkCredentialsProvider(NetworkCredential credentials)
        {
            this.credentials = credentials;
        }
        public ICredentials GetCredentials(Uri uri, ICredentials failedCredentials)
        {
            return this.credentials;
        }
        public void NotifyCredentialsAuthenticated(Uri uri)
        {
        }
    }

Use this Provider to connect to the Project Collection

ICredentialsProvider TFSProxyCredentials;
var credentials = new NetworkCredential("Username", "Password", "Domain"); TFSProxyCredentials = new NetworkCredentialsProvider(credentials);

var projectCollection = TfsTeamProjectCollectionFactory.GetTeamProjectCollection(projectCollectionUri, TFSProxyCredentials);

When running this code from a webpage/webpart the TFS will return an exception: “TF237121: Cannot complete the operation. An unexpected error occurred.”

This Exception is occurs because the TFS Client does not have a reference to a local Cache for storing files. (Normally this is stored in the current user profile area)

The solution is to let the TFS Client know where to store cache-files. This is done by defining a application setting named WorkItemTrackingCacheRoot and specifying a local path on the server (With proper NTFS rights)

The application setting can be created in web.config or programmatically

web.config:

<appSettings> <!-- Add reference to TFS Client Cache -->
   < add key="WorkItemTrackingCacheRoot" value="C:\TFSClientCache" /> </appSettings>

Code:

if (WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["WorkItemTrackingCacheRoot"] == null || WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["WorkItemTrackingCacheRoot"] == String.Empty)
{
   WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["WorkItemTrackingCacheRoot"] = System.IO.Path.GetTempPath() + "TFSClientCache";
}

Thanks to Naren’s blog for pointing out the Client Cache settings

Click to download complete code to connect, and to get project info