Installing TFS on windows 2008 without the proper web server service roles

When installing TFS 2008 on a windows server 2008, it is important to select the proper rules in IIS 7 prior to installing TFS 2008. This is important because the TFS installation will no do this check for you.

We had the following happened that made me wonder of my sanity.

TFS application was completely installed without issue but the "Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Task Scheduler" service was not starting.

In the event log, the error was an TF30069: An unexpected condition has occurred on TfsServerScheduler.exe

No other error were present. So this is what we did to try and find the root of the problem:

1. In inetmgr, the web site and the TFS application pool where started.
2. We attempted to hit the TFS registration page; http://localhost:8080/services/v1.0/registration.asmx) but IE was returning a blank page (no error, no security prompts). OK, now we knew something was incorrectly installed.
3. In the meantime, we had start a Best Practice Analyzer run, but the results showed no errors and the report was full of blank values (it was not reporting any information related to TFS).
4. So we went back to the TFS install guide to get all the roles that are required. We found that the "HTTP redirection" and "Windows Authentication" had been forgotten.

You can see this information by using the Server Manager - Roles. Below is a screen that shows of all the required service roles.

Luckily, the fix was easy; within Server Manager, on the Select Role Services page - roles services section, choose the "add roles services" hyperlink, and check off the missing services:

Web Server Common - HTTP Redirection;

Web application development - ASP.NET;

Management tools - IIS 6.0 Management Compatibility;

All subordinate check boxes are automatically selected.

Security - Windows Authentication.

After the missing services had been installed TFS was running without any further action.

So Team Foundation Server 2008 installation nor the BPA (at least the public version of it) checks to see if all the required roles in IIS7 have been set, live and learn.

Bertrand