How to connect to visualstudio.com TFS using Visual Studio 2008

Question

I have some requirements that I need to use Visual Studio 2008 for a new SSIS package. But we are using visualstudio.com as our source control because we were allowed to use Visual Studio 2012 for our main project.

I tried following the instructions here http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/get-started/connect-to-vs.aspx and here how to open Team Explorer in Visual Studio 2008 and no go.

Has anyone been able to connect to their TFS server at visualstudio.com from Visual Studio 2008? If so, how did you do it?

Answer 1

Officially VS 2008 is only supported against TFS 2013 (and Visual Studio Online) by using the MSSCCI. However, in practice it still works fine without MSSCCI, MS just no longer tests this particular scenario, so it's not guaranteed to continue working.

Make sure you have the appropriate updates installed, you need:

• VSTS 2008 Team Explorer
• VS 2008 SP1
• TFS 2012 Compatibility GDR

Order of installation is very important. Refer to this article.

Moreover, if you are still having issues connecting to TFS after successfully installing above mentioned updates, consider clearing your IE browsing history (all checkboxes) and retry.

Answer 2

Per MSDN you can access version control on Visual Studio Online with Visual Studio 2008 using Team Explorer for Visual Studio Team System 2008 and MSSCCI 2013.