Installing and configuring the VB6 MSSCCI provider

The Visual Studio Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider has been available as a pre-release beta for a little while now and I finally had a need to install and test it today with a VB6 installation. For those of you interested, here’s a recount of my experience installing the MSSCCI provider and adding a new VB6 project into TFS.

Installing the VSTFS MSSCCI Provider

  1. Start by installing the .NET Framework 2.0 Redistributable on the machine where you wish to install the VB6 MSSCCI provider if it is not already installed. (22.4Mb Download) 
    This is a requirement before you can install the MSSCCI provider
  2. Install the Team Foundation Client from your TFS Beta 3 or Beta 3 Refresh installation CD

  3. Double click the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server MSSCCI Provider.msi installer. I just ran through a stock standard default installation into the default location for the purpose of getting my testing started. Reminder:  After the installation, you will see “Microsoft Visual Studio 2005” in the start menu. This is how you access the Team Explorer, it is not an actual install of VS2005 (unless of course you have already installed VS2005 on the same PC)</li>

    • Once installed, you can see a Team Foundation item in the Tools menu as shown below. TFSinVB6</li>

      • Selecting Options in the menu brings up the following dialog box containing a number of options including the option to use multiple (shared) check out if you wish.
        TFSinVB6Options</ol>

      Adding a new VB6 Project to Team Foundation Server

      1. The first thing I did was create a simple Windows Hello World project in VB6. When I went to save the project, I was prompted with a question asking if I wanted to “Add this project to Team Foundation” as shown below. TFSinVB6SaveProjAdds</li>

        • Clicking Yes brings up the familiar “Connect to a Team Foundation Server” dialog box where you provide details of the TFS server you wish to connect to. This is a fairly straight forward task.

        • The next dialog asks you to choose or add a new workspace. For my test, I just created a new workspace named VB6Workspace. TFSinVB6AddWorkspace</li>

          • After adding the workspace, select the new workspace name and click OK. You will then be prompted to select a location to store your project in the team foundation server and in your local workspace. TFSinVB6SelectLocation</li>

            • I chose to create a new folder called “TFSinVB6Testing” to store my test application in.

            • The next step prompts you to identify which files you want to add to Team Foundation Server. I selected all my hard work and left a nice detailed comment as well TFSinVB6SelectFiles</li>

              • Once this was complete my sample VB6 project was nice and securely stored in TFVC. A quick visit to the Source Control Explorer confirmed this. TFSinVB6_SCE</li> </ol>

                On first impressions, the standard check-in/check-out works completely as expected. I will spend some more time with it and see how well it performs (for a pre-release product anyway).