Visual Studio 2008 SP1, TFS, and the Experimental Hive

Every once in a while I enter the nightmare of formatting my development machine. :)

This time my "wonderful nightmare" was getting Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and the Experimental Hive (for my DSL Tools developments) working correctly (with TFS Team Explorer and TFS Source Control working on the Experimental Hive).

In the end, I think that now I would do it correctly. For the sake of documenting the procedure and the potential problems, here it is:

1. Install Visual Studio 2008 Team System Development Edition
2. Install Visual Studio 2008 Team Explorer (from the same CD)
3. Install Visual Studio 2008 SP1
4. Install Visual Studio 2008 SDK SP1

If I had followed these steps probably I wouldn't have bumped into a set of problems. But, just in case, if you find any of these difficulties after installing all these pieces, here are (possible) solutions...

If you get an WorkItemDeniedOrNotExistsException exception when editing TFS work items:

TFS Team Explorer was probably installed after VS 2008 SP1. Simply reinstall SP1 and it will work.

Reference: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3380330&SiteID=1

If TFS Team Explorer and Source Control are not available in the Experimental Hive:

There was something wrong with your VS 2008 installation when you installed the SDK. Resetting the Experimental Hive will probably correct the problem. Just point to All Programs \ Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK \ Tools \ Reset the Visual Studio 2008 Experimental Hive.

Reference: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsx/thread/b071f63c-e6eb-4ce3-844f-b9345aaf4dec/

If you build a DSL Tools solution and the designer is still not available in the Experimental Hive

Your package was not registered when you built the DSL tools project. Edit the DSLPackage project file and make sure the following piece is set to true:

<RegisterOutputPackage>true</RegisterOutputPackage>

Hope this helps someone out there.