Upgrade Team Foundation Server

Use this guide to upgrade to the latest release of Team Foundation Server 2013.

You’ll find step-by-step guidance here that covers the most popular upgrade tasks, including in-place upgrades and upgrades that involve moving to new hardware and direction on what to do with SharePoint, whether it’s running on the same server as TFS or somewhere else. We’ll also walk through upgrade of a build machine, as well as adding new features to your upgraded team projects.

  1. Review upgrade requirements

  2. Upgrade TFS application-tier server

  3. Setup a new build server

  4. Add new features to your team projects

  • Q: What should we do with our files with pending changes? Do we have to check them in before we upgrade?

1. Review upgrade requirements

First, read the TFS upgrade requirements. New for this release, SQL Server and SharePoint requirements have changed. Some versions of SharePoint that were previously supported are no longer supported, so you might have to upgrade your SharePoint Farm to continuing using it with TFS.

2. Upgrade TFS application-tier server

Next, choose a server upgrade path.

The steps are different based on whether you’re using a basic TFS installation (or Express), or if you’re planning to use the same hardware (standard upgrade) or moving to a new machine (advanced upgrade). Select from one of the paths below:

TFS server upgrade choices

3. Setup a new build server

After you upgrade the application tier, you might want to install the new build service. At the bottom of the build service installation topic, you’ll find some tips on dealing with the build service and upgrade.

Set up Team Foundation Build Service

install build machine for upgrade

4. Add new features to your team projects

You can also use a wizard to add new features to your team projects.

Configure features after a TFS upgrade

Add new features to your team projects

Q & A

Q: What should we do with changes on our dev machines? Do we have to push or check them in before we upgrade?

A: You don’t have to check in changes to TFVC files or push changes to Git files. After you’ve completed the upgrade, your team members can connect to the upgraded server and continue working.

If you’re concerned about backing up changes on a local dev machine during the upgrade process, you can:

  • TFVC iconTFVC:Shelve your changes.

  • Git iconGit: Copy or push your repo to a backup location on an alternate machine or storage device.