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While VS 2008 SP1 and SQL Server 2008 were relatively painless to install, I run into some issues with the TFS 2008 SP1.

I’ll tell briefly my case so you can avoid this or find the solution, should you have the same reason for the problem.

The TFS 2008 is installed on a single Windows Server 2008 machine (except SharePoint) and uses SQL Server 2005 SP2.

When I tried to install the KB949786 (TFS SP1), the first part went always fine (TFS Build), but it ended in Fatal Error during the update of the actual TFS. TFS got into unusable state (clients couldn’t connect etc)

The errors in the Event Log were:

“Product: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server – ENU – Update ‘KB949786′ could not be installed. Error code 1603. Additional information is available in the log file <file>”

and

“Product: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server – ENU — Error 29003.TF 230001: The error mode for the Team Foundation Server Web application could not be configured properly. This problem occurred because the application root for the Team Foundation Server Web application does not exist. For more information, see the Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) log.”

After some googling, I found similar symptoms from the MSDN Forums. Logins etc were alright in my case, so the reason was elsewhere. (Tip: don’t change TFS service accounts unless you have a very good reason and if you do, use the tools mentioned in the forum)

Finally I just had to go through the installation log and from there I found the reason:

08/13/08 10:51:15 DDSet_Status: Commandline: "C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe" set config "Team Foundation Server" -section:httpErrors -existingResponse:PassThrough -commitpath:apphost
08/13/08 10:51:15 DDSet_Status: IgnoreExitCode: 0
08/13/08 10:51:15 DDSet_Status: Silent: 0
08/13/08 10:51:15 DDSet_Status: ActionStart: 0
08/13/08 10:51:15 DDSet_Status: Cost: 0
08/13/08 10:51:15 DDSet_Status: WorkingDirectory:
08/13/08 10:51:15 DDSet_Status: HideCmdLine: 0
ERROR ( message:Cannot find SITE object with identifier "Team Foundation Server". )
08/13/08 10:51:16 DDSet_Status: Process returned 1168
08/13/08 10:51:16 DDSet_Status: Found the matching error code  for return value ‘1168′ and it is: ‘29003′
08/13/08 10:51:16 DDSet_Error:  1168
MSI (s) (B8!94) [10:51:16:127]: Product: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server – ENU — Error 29003.TF 230001: The error mode for the Team Foundation Server Web application could not be configured properly. This problem occurred because the application root for the Team Foundation Server Web application does not exist. For more information, see the Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) log.

I have the habit of putting server port in the names of the web sites in the IIS and I had renamed the “Team Foundation Server” to “Team Foundation Server – 8080”. The patch was obviously looking for the original name and failed because it didn’t find a web site with exactly the same name.

I just renamed the web site hosting the web services back to “Team Foundation Server”, run the patch again (without uninstalling it first) and everything went fine.

Microsoft, you could modify that part of the patch to search the web site with partial match or better: with some kind of unique ID of the web site instead of the name.

TFS is still very new product and it relies on so many other services and products that there are many places where something can go wrong. This is why it is better not to mess with anything directly without using official tools.