Installing TFS2010 build controller on Windows Server 2012

Question

Where I currently work we are using TFS2010 and already have a build controller set up on a Windows Server 2008 R2 box. We are contemplating upgrading our TFS2010 instance to TFS2012, but in the meantime we are about to start development on a new product. The project team have established that it would be a good idea to create a new build server for this new product for the following reasons:

• Our current products are .NET 3.5 solutions
• The new product will be a .NET 4.5 WPF solution
• Preference to install third-party components and tools required by the build of the new product in an environment separate to our current build server so as not affect the building and release of service packs and hot-fixes of existing products.

Can a TFS2010 build controller be installed on a Windows Server 2012 machine, and what are the things that I need to look out for? Or is it more advisable to install a new controller on another Windows Server 2008 R2 machine, and when we have upgraded to TFS2012 to upgrade the controller on the new server, and perhaps upgrade the server to Windows Server 2012 as well?

Answer 1

Installing TFS 2010 build controller in Windows Server 2012 was pretty simple. Note that .NET 3.5 needs to be installed on the build server before installing TFS 2010 build controllers.

Also if building .NET 4.5 applications, and are not keen on installing Visual Studio 2012 on a build server, the Windows 8 SDK should be installed.

Furthermore I would recommend installing MSBuild Community Tasks (https://code.google.com/p/msbuildtasks/downloads/detail?name=MSBuild.Community.Tasks.v1.4.0.56.msi&can=2&q=) for extra MSBuild functionality. This is especially beneficial for applying a version number to your assemblies by obtaining build number values from whatever automated build server technology you are using and supplying these values as parameters to MSBuild. The following article demonstrates this using the Bamboo CI server product: http://itrathnasekara.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/setting-assembly-version-automatically.html.