Best Self-Hosting Solution for TFS 2010?

Question

I want to install TFS 2010 on my own machine - a Dell Laptop with 8GB RAM, running Windows 7. Now, since installing on Win7 means I can't run SharePoint or Reports, and I don't want to reformat my machine to Win 2008, I need to virtualize.

I would like something that I can have always on, and treat like a server on my LAN, or at the very least, something that I can activate quickly, when needed. Oh, and I'd like it to be free :).

As far as I can tell, my options are MS Virtual PC, Virtual Box, VMWare.

What would be my best option? Are there any other options?

Thanks,
Assaf

Answer 1

You can either use MS Virtual PC or VMWare. I have been using TFS2010 installed on MS Virtual PC and its working fine.

Answer 2

If you want to use 8 GB RAM, you'll want to use either VMWare or repave your machine (but save the TFS databases) as Windows Server 2008 R2 and use Hyper-V.

You can then install TFS 2010 again but point it at your set of restored databases. You'll be able to enable the SharePoint and Reporting for your newly restored TFS instance.

Answer 3

I've ran it on a VM from my Dev box and the performance wasn't the best. Memory and disk IO are very important when running SQL and the competition with multiple instances of Visual Studio, plus the overhead of VMWare made it unbearable. With enough memory and RAID or a SSD, you may be okay.

I know it's not free, but there are a few hosted solutions that are decently priced (TFS Server Hosting). They also allow you to access it from anywhere and your code will be backed up.