Monday 19 April 2010

TFS 2010 Install and Western Australia Timezone Error (tf255356)

The TFS 2010 install is reportedly a walk in the park by comparison with previous versions so I thought it would be fun to give it a spin as we prepare to move from TFS 2008 to the latest and greatest.

First of all, if you’re doing a test install (or any kind of install, for that matter), the TFSInstall.chm guide included in the root of the installation media has a very well-documented process for installing both SQL Server 2008 and TFS. Unlike previous guides I’ve attempted to wade through, this one is actually quite a light read and presents just the information required to get up and running.

Apart from installing Windows Server 2008 R2 with Analysis Services and Reporting Services, I also installed SQL Server 2008 and SP1 before dropping into the TFS installer; the installer will add .NET 4, the Web Server (IIS) feature, WSS 3.0 if required, and SQL Server 2008 Express if required. I reused existing service accounts on the domain for SQL Server and TFS and created a new service account for Reporting Services. Some other bits were left to run as Network Service.

When installation completes, the configuration wizard kicks off. I went with the advanced option since I didn’t want to install SharePoint. 

The entire process was a smooth experience until I ran into an old nemesis for those of us opposed to daylight saving here in Western Australia:

tf255356 Error occurred while executing servicing step Create Warehouse for component TfsWarehouse during Install: The supplied DateTime represents an invalid time.  For example, when the clock is adjusted forward, any time in the period that is skipped is invalid.

This is interesting because the push for daylight savings was defeated a while back and the latest timezone updates were reported to be installed on my new R2 machine.

Luckily Andreww posted a work around on the connect issue: change the timezone from (UTC +8:00) Perth to (UTC +8:00) Tapei (where daylight savings is also not observed and Windows recognises the fact…). Before I could continue I had to delete both the TFS_Configuration and TFS_Warehouse databases as they were created before this problem cropped up.

All good from there… configuration completed successfully. But groan nonetheless, Microsoft!

3 comments:

  1. Dude! thanks for this. I have just spent the day trying to resolve the same issue. Switching to Taipei and giving it a go.

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  2. Thanks very much for the workaround.

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  3. Thanks for your post, it fix my install problem :)

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