Team Foundation Server 2017 Installation Step By Step

On November 16th, 2016, Microsoft released Team Foundation Server 2017. Installing Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2017 is straightforward to do. I will introduce you to the steps needed to install TFS. You can find the requirements for TFS 2017 here. For my installation, I’m using SQL Server 2016, and I don’t have SharePoint installed.

Note: This guide shows how to configure TFS on a dual server. That is the TFS 2017 web application tier on one server and the database tier (SQL Server 2016) on another.

For dual server/multi-server configuration, the two servers must be under the same domain forest. The article will guide you on Windows AD domain configuration and add another computer to it.

Click here: How to Install Active Directory in Windows Server 2019.

Team Foundation Server 2017 Installation

• Run Tfs2017.exe

You should see the Team Foundation Server Setup dialog.

• Click Install

The installer will run and start to copy files to your disk.

You should now see the Team Foundation Server Configuration Center.

• Choose Configure Team Foundation Server
• Click Start Wizard

You should now be on the welcome page.

• Choose the second option. No, I do not want to participate.
• Click Next

Now you will be on the Deployment Type page.

• Select This is a new Team Foundation Server deployment
• Click Next

On the Select your deployment scenario page, you’ll be prompted to choose between a TFS Basic or TFS Advanced deployment. You’ll need to choose the Advanced version for configuring the SQL Server Reporting Services with TFS.

• Choose New Deployment – Advanced
• Click Next

Specify Team Foundation Server Database

The Specify Team Foundation Server Databases page prompts you to choose your SQL Server database. This guide assumes that you installed SQL Server 2016 Standard on the same machine as TFS.

• To the right of the SQL Server Instance textbox, click the Test link to verify the
  connection to SQL Server
• Confirm that the test passes
• Click Next

You should now see the Service Account page. You can run TFS as a system account, but this makes permissions management – more specifically, permissions debugging. It will be much harder later when you start the automated builds, deployments, and testing. My recommendation is to run TFS as a separate service account.

• Choose to Use a user account.
• In the Account Name textbox, type the fully-qualified name of the Service Account.
  Example: TECHYBIRB\Administrator.
• In the Password textbox, enter the password for the service account.
• Click the Test link to verify the credentials are correct.
• Click Next.

Application Tier Web Services

You should now see a page prompting you for the configuration of TFS in IIS. You may see a warning about using SSL encryption. It’s a good idea, but it’s not required.

(Optional) At the bottom of this page, there’s a section for File Cache Location. TFS caches files for efficiency. The contents of this directory can become impressively large. For performance reasons and disk space management reasons, you probably should put this on a separate disk – ideally on a different “spindle” – than your system/operating system drive.

• (Optional) Change the Folder path to reference the desired location and disk.
• Click Next

TFS2017 adds new features to help you search the contents of your team projects. It is an optional feature.

• Check Install and configure Search.

• Choose Install Search Service.
• Set the location of the search index to the drive and folder you want to use for the search feature. For performance reasons, you’ll probably want to keep this on a different drive location than the system drive. If your TFS installation is large and busy, you may want to put this on its drive itself.
• Under Service Account, choose to use a user account.
• Set Account Name to the service account wants to use to run the search feature. In this configuration, I’m using the same account at the TFS Service, TECHYBIRB\Administrator.
• Set the password for the service account.
• Click the Test link to verify the service credentials.
• Click Next.

Configuring Reporting for Team Foundation Server (Optional)

You should now see the Configure Reporting for Team Foundation Server page. It is another optional feature, but this guide assumes that you are installing support for SQL Server Reporting Services with TFS2017.

• Check Configure Reporting for use with Team Foundation Server
• Click Next

You should now see the Provide Reporting Services Settings for the Team Foundation Server page. These values should be automatically populated.

• Click Next

You should now see the Analysis Services settings page.

• Click the Test link to verify the connection to SQL Server Analysis Services.
• Click Next

Next, you’ll provide the credentials for SQL Server Reporting Services Reports. You will have the option to skip this, and you can run this with the same account as the TFS Service Account, but this is probably not ideal for security reasons.

• Check Use a different account than the Team Foundation Server service account.
• Set Account Name to the fully qualified username of the service account
• Set the password for the service account
• Click the Test link to verify the credentials
• Click Next

You should now be on the page asking if you’d like to install the integration with SharePoint.

• Uncheck Enable integration with SharePoint.
• Click Next.

Create a new Project Collection

The installer will prompt you to create a new Team Project Collection (TPC). The answer to this one (unless you’re migrating) is yes.

• Check Create a new team project collection.
• Click Next.

You should now be on the Confirm the Configuration Settings Before Proceeding page.

• Click Next.

The installer will run some readiness checks. They should all come back as passed except for the Search Configuration item. The Search feature requires the Oracle Server JRE installed, and this warning is prompting you to accept the licensing agreement for the JRE.

• Check I accept the Oracle Binary Code License Agreement for Java SE.
• Click the Configure button.

The configuration process should now be running.

The configuration process should end with a message saying Success.

• Click Next.

You should now be on the Review the Results page.

• Click Close.

Team Foundation Server 2017 is now configured and running.