This is how we have TFS express edition set up among 5 developers. We have our lead programmer install TFS 2012 Express edition on his machine. That comes with an install of SQL Server Express 2012 editions. Remaining 4 developers also install TFS Express and SQL Server express 2012 on their respective machines. From inside Visual studio of their individual machines, the 4 developers connect to lead programmers path of tfs code. Is this the right set up? I am thinking, if the lead developer turns off his machine, the code db also goes down and hence the other developers can no longer access the source repository? is that correct? To avoid this happening, do I need to install TFS 2012 express edition on its own dedicated server box and have all 5 developers connect to it, so atleast the server will be accessible all the time. Am I thinking correctly? please advise.
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TFS is the server software, and Visual Studio is the client software.
To use TFS, you would typically install the TFS server (including SQL etc) on one computer, and then all your developers would connect to it from their installs of Visual Studio. The developers should not install TFS on their own PCs.
If you turn off the TFS computer, then the server will not be running, so none of the developers will be able to access it – they will not be able to use source control, report bugs, etc without it. However, they can work “offline” until the server is turned back on – as long as they have the code they need on their PC, they do not need the server running.
Most people would recommend using a dedicated PC as the TFS server – it’s not really a good idea to use the server as a develolpment PC. For 5 users the load on the server will be very low, so it will not need to be a particularly powerful PC in order to run SQL and TFS, as long as it has plenty of disk space for its source control databases (preferably with redundant RAID and/or a decent backup solution so you won’t lose all your source code if the server fails).
I suggest you do some more reading up on TFS to get a better idea about how it works before you start installing it – it’s a serious/complex bit of software and you’ll need to follow the installation instructions carefully.