Team Build 2010 software requirements for VS 2008 clients

Question

One of our TFS 2010 requirements is to support software projects that still use Visual Studio Team System 2008 for development. My question is whether a Build Server based on Team Build 2010 can compile 2008 code by itself. I mean connecting to TFS 2010 using Visual Studio Team Suite 2008, which means we are planning to install the Forward Compatibility Update on all development machines.

We have an existing TFS 2008 system and according to that the build server requires VSTS 2008 to be installed in order to compile code and run automated tests. I would assume the same for TFS 2010 where VS 2010 Ultimate should be installed in the build server, but we are not sure whether VSTS 2008 is required "as well" in this use case.

I hope someone could share their thoughts about this. Thanks.

Answer 1

As long as you install;

1. Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite,
2. Visual Stduio 2008 Team Explorer
3. VS2008 SP1
4. and 2008 GDR forward compatibility pack next to Visual Studio 2010 on the buildserver, Team Build 2010 can compile and unittest 2008 solutions. There are however some known issues with Workflow projects, so install VS 2010 and TFS 2010 SP1 and test your solutions.