
Using an Older Version of Team Explorer with a Newer Version of Team Foundation Server
If your client computer is running the Visual Studio 2005 Team System version of Team Explorer, it can connect to a server that is running the Visual Studio Team System 2008 version of Team Foundation Server. With this configuration, you can use the Visual Studio Team System 2008 version of Team Foundation Build, but you should consider the following limitations:
You can use the Visual Studio 2005 Team System version of Team Explorer to start a build, view a list of completed builds, view the build report for a build, change the build quality, and create a build type.
If you create a build type, the Visual Studio Team System 2008 version of Team Foundation Server automatically imports the type into the list of build definitions in source control. You can then view the type in the Visual Studio Team System 2008 version of Team Explorer.
You cannot use the Visual Studio 2005 Team System version of Team Explorer to queue a build, view the list of builds in the queue, view the list of build agents, or manage the build agents.
The Visual Studio 2005 Team System version of Team Explorer uses the information in the TFSBuild.proj file to start a build. This file is located in the $/<TeamProject>/TeamBuildTypes/<BuildTypeName> folder. The Visual Studio Team System 2008 version of the TFSBuild.proj file includes the same properties as the Visual Studio 2005 Team System version so that you can use the older version of Team Explorer to start a build. However, the newer version of the file also has comments that indicate which properties are obsolete for build definitions.
If you update properties in the TFSBuild.proj file that is stored in the Visual Studio Team System 2008 version of Team Foundation Server, your changes are not updated in the Visual Studio 2005 Team System database.
You can use TFSBuild.exe to start, stop, and delete builds.