When I have got the trial CDs of VSTS and Team Foundation Server, I have been surrounded by this urge to install them.
I do not have a proper computer to run VPC and VSTS image. My fastest machine is my laptop (I know, I need to upgrade) running Windows 2003 Server on PIV 2Ghz with 720mb memory. All my development and personal files are on this computer. I guess, if you want to play with new technology, you need to make some sacrifices.
I have started with a clean up and uninstalled unnecessary and duplicate applications like SQL Server 2005 DE, VS etc. I have started with SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition. Somehow, the interactive installation did not install the default instance. I had to uninstall SQL Server 2000 as well just to remove default instance and make more room for others.
I have installed SQL Server 2005 with the answer file from the command prompt. This answer file is on the TFS DVD called SQL2005ForATDT.ini and the chm help file for TFS installation explains how to use it.
During the TFS setup, after a check for necessary components you will see a report about the errors/warnings which may stop the installation. If you have set the IIS and WWW services to manual like me (I don’t want them running always) the error report says they are not running although they are running but set to manual. When you change them to “automatic” error goes away.
After starting necessary services and changing startup options; the only 2 warnings were about the CPU and RAM being less than the suggested amounts. As soon as I get approvals from my wife I will upgrade these 
. For now, it should run with what is on hand.
Installation went smooth and without any 32000 errors like before. After this I have installed VSTS2005. Well at least I have tried. This 180 days trial edition of VSTS didn’t install all the components and gave errors during the installation. Installation finished successfully but it gave me an error whenever I tried to open VSTS. I have uninstalled VSTS and trying to install now again. See how it goes.
