[If you want the fix scroll to fix to bypass story]

I think there was a lot of pain, at least from what I heard, about installing Team Foundation Server in the beta editions. Well I can pretty safely assert that the final release contains some install pains as well.

Before continuing…

[Big Disclaimer]

I am not a tech or system admin person, nor do I play one on TV. However, recently our division has undergone lots of change topped off with an Office move, to a new bigger and badder digs. Needless to say things have been hectic. Since I was so psyched on using Team Foundation instead of, well the tools I was going to have to use. If I wanted Team System, I would have to take onus of the install myself as the “Systems team” was extremely busy.

So I began by reading the readme files and any other documentation the software came with. Yet, I couldn’t get Team Foundation Server to install. I tried and tried, again and again. It was a very frustrating. Perhaps an experience system admin would have known what to do or where not to follow the steps. I however did not. So finally after almost a day of spinning my wheels, I decided to put my debugger hat on and think logically, throw away the manual and base things on how I could get the software to install and run properly. As you can imagine this technique worked… So what did I do different.

[Instructions]

When installing SharePoint SP 2 (Service Pack 2), choose server farm on the Wizard, this step is inline with the instructions. However once the scripts have ran, you will briefly see command windows executing these scripts, and the web browser launches to configure the “server farm” environment, set up the Database, etc. The documentation here diverges from what actually works, it states to close out the browser “without making any changes”.

[Excerpt from Docs]

When the installation is complete, a Web browser window opens and displays the Configure Administrative Virtual Server page. After confirming that the page appears, close the browser window without making any changes.

Closing the browser always leads to receiving error 42. Instead simply by clicking “OK”, which implies commit changes currently on the screen, at the bottom of the page, everything works. The docs lead one to believe otherwise in my opinion. I realize this is a minor detail, but one of perhaps a source of huge pain, especially if you waste half a day tracking it down . BTW, if you have gone down this road, you will need to un-install SharePoint and re-install again, remembering to click on the OK button before closing the form and wait for the full post back that navigates to the next page. As a last side note the “OK” button does lead to another page with more configurations, “DO” close this window without any further changes or clicking any buttons (UI elements).