Planet SCM

I'll let this post be a running list of issues that I hear about as people try installing SP1.  So far I've heard mostly good things about the installation process but a few problems as well.  Here's a few things to know:

1) If you get a Windows Update prompt to reboot during SP1 installation, ignore it (don't reboot).  Wait until after the SP1 installation completes and then reboot.

2) If you have a prerelease of the Team System for Database Development GDR (that supports SQL 2008) installed, you will need to uninstall and 2reinstall it after upgrading to SP1.

3) Apparently you can't create the admin mode/slipstream TFS installer when running on a Vista 64-bit OS.  I suspect it won't work on any 64-bit OS but the customer report I saw said it was 64-bit Vista but it worked on 32-bit Vista.  Of course TFS itself can only be installed on Windows 2003 or Windows 2008 and the application tier still only supports 32 bit.  Yes, I know, I know.  We've gotten tons of feedback about how bad it is not supporting 64-bit.  That's coming in our Rosario release.

4) We've had numerous reports of checkin notification failures when users user tfsadminutil configureconnections to configure a Team System Web Access Url.  We have confirmed that this is a bug and and working on a patch now.  Watch for it on Code Gallery here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?TagName=Hotfix%2ctfs.

Good luck and let me know what you learn so we can share it with others,

Brian

Following on the release last week of SQLServer 2008, we are proud to announce the release of Visual Studio/Visual Studio Team System 2008 SP1, Team Foundation Server 2008 SP1 and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.  You can download them here.  Bootstrappers are for online installs and iso is if you want to download the whole thing and install offline or share it with several people.  The TFS download is an iso.  I'm not sure about the .NET 3.5 one.

• Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions with Service Pack 1 (Bootstrappers)
• Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions with Service Pack 1 (iso)
• Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (Bootstrapper)
• Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (iso)
• Visual Studio  Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Service Pack 1
• NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

These updates bring some unbelievably good value.  If you've been following my commentary, then you already know these are not our traditional service pack.  In addition to new platform support (like support for the newly released SQLServer 2008) and the traditional roll up of hot fixes and other high priority bug fixes, these service packs are packed full of new value.  I would have write I book to enumerate everything we have.  At a very high level, the improvements include:

• Improved WPF designers
• SQLServer 2008 support
• ADO.NET Entity designer
• Visual Basic & Visual C++ improvements (including an MFC-based Office 2007 style 'Ribbon')
• Team Foundation Server improvements - detailed here
• Richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools and web site deployment improvements
• A new .NET profile for client applications that is much smaller and installs much faster
• Substantial .NET performance improvements (particularly in startup time)
• And much, much more...

A few notes on this SP from a TFS perspective...

• As always, please read the readme file.  It will contain valuable information.
• Download and read the updated TFS Installation guide.  You will find a link to it on the TFS 2008 SP1 download page.
• If you are going to install .NET 3.5 SP1 on your TFS 2008 server, you MUST install TFS 2008 SP1.  There is a small incompatibility that results in the version control permissions dialog being empty if you don't upgrade to TFS 2008 SP1 at the same time.  You can install .NET 3.5 SP1 on your TFS 2005 SP1 server without experiencing this issue and without requiring any TFS 2005 update.
• This release of TFS supports SQLServer 2008, however, there are some important things to know.
• You can't install the original TFS 2008 release on SQLServer 2008 - it will fail.  And this is a service pack can must be installed on top of an existing TFS installation - so how can we make this work?  You have two options:
1. If you already have TFS 2008 installed with a SQLServer 2005 database, you can install TFS 2008 SP1 and then upgrade your SQLServer 2005 database to SQLServer 2008.
2. If you already have TFS 2005 installed with a SQLServer 2005 database, you must upgrade to TFS 2008 (requires purchasing it, of course) and then upgrade to TFS 2008 SP1 and finally upgrade to SQLServer 2008 (also requires purchasing it).
3. If you don't yet have TFS installed and want to do a fresh install of TFS and use SQLServer 2008, you need to install TFS in a "special" way.  You need to use what we call "slipstream" install or "admin mode" install.  What you do is run a series of commands to merge the TFS 2008 SP1 into a copy of the original TFS 2008 installation media.  This creates a new "setup" that can then be run and installed against a SQL 2008 database.  You will find detailed instructions for this in the update TFS installation guide referenced from the TFS 2008 SP1 download page.
• There have been some reports of a few of our reports breaking with the final build of SQLServer 2008.  We are investigating that now and I will update you as soon as we know more.
• There are a couple of other reasons you may want to use the "admin mode" installer approach described above...
• If you are upgrading from TFS 2005 to TFS 2008 and you have a lot (like > 1,000) builds created by TFS Build on your server, the TFS 2008 install had a bug that would cause it to fail.  The "admin mode" installer of SP1 has fixed this problem and should allow you to do a one step upgrade from TFS 2005 to TFS 2008 SP1, side stepping this problem.
• Because of the timing of the TFS 2008 and Windows Server 2008 releases, we had to remove the ability for the TFS 2008 installer to install and configure Sharepoint Server on a Windows 2008 server.  We have added it back in TFS 2008 SP1.  So, if you'd like to do an install of TFS 2008 on a Windows 2008 server and avoid installing Sharepoint yourself, you can use the "admin mode" installation experience and have TFS install and configure Sharepoint for you.  None of this applies to Windows Server 2003 - TFS 2008 would install Sharepoint on a Windows 2003 server just fine.

I really think you are going to love this service pack.  It's very compatible with what you are already using and yet delivers a ton of new things to make your life better.  As always, let me know about any issues or questions you have and I will find someone to help you if I can't.

If you have setup issues, a great first resource is Heath's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/tags/VS+2008+SP1/default.aspx.  Here's a useful entry about collecting setup log information: http://go.microsoft.com/?LinkId=8967044

Brian

I've been keeping you all abreast of changes in our Hotfix plans.  More than a year ago, we introduced the notion of advertising hotfixes and enabling people to browse and download the hotfixes the find most useful.  Prior to that, the only way to get a hotfix was to call customer support with a problem and have them determine that one of our available hotfixes would solve it.  Six months or so ago, we introduced a new and much improved site (MSDN Code Gallery) for searching for and browsing hotfixes.  We also enabled notification via an RSS feed.

We have just added a new capability - localization of all Hotfix information.  Hotfix descriptions are now available in 10 languages (including English).  When you go to MSDN Code Gallery, you will now see a page with links for each of the supported languages.

I hope our international customers will find this to be a big help in keeping their VS, VSTS and TFS products up to date.

Brian

Warning - this is early information and is subject to change but the Expression team cleared me to say something about it.

We get a lot of feedback from customers who would like more seamless integration between Expression and the rest of their development team using TFS.  Last week I saw a demo of work being done that will result in TFS source control integration into Expression Web and Expression Blend.  It was very nice.  All of the basic operations were there - add, checkout, undo checkout, history, diff, checkin, etc.  Checkin even used the same dialog as Team Explorer so you get full fidelity - work item integration, checkin policies, etc.

It was exciting to see us making progress in this key area.  I'm told this is all going to be in the next version of Expression - of course, I don't have any release date to announce :).  However, keep your eyes open for pre-releases (like CTPs) and check out the TFS integration.  We'll be eager to hear your feedback.

Combine this with the recent release of TFS integration for Dynamics developers and we are really making progress on ensuring everyone can participate in team development regardless of what kind of development you do.

Brian

Preparation is in full swing for the Microsoft PDC this fall (Oct 27 - 30).  PDCs are the primary event where we talk about the future (as opposed to events like TechEd where we primarily talk about the present).  This PDC promised to have a great deal of new content for developers.  Among them, I think this will be the first conference where we really talk in depth about what is coming in the Team System release code named "Rosario".  If you are passionate about ALM, it will be a great show.

In addition to the core PDC event, there will be a set of pre-conference presentations the preceding day.  Among them will be sessions on VSTS today to position you to really understand the "tomorrow" stuff coming in the PDC.  There is also a great session on Agile development.  Check them out if you are interested.

I'm planning on being at the PDC and look forward to seeing you there.

Brian

We'll be holding a PDC this fall in Los Angeles Oct 27 - 30.  Registration opens today at: http://www.microsoftpdc.com/.  There are many developer oriented conferences that present an opportunity to learn about Microsoft technologies.  The PDC is the most forward looking of those conferences.  It is an opportunity to learn what our plans and directions are for the next several years.  It's a unique glimps into the future and a chance to mold your plans.

This PDC is going to be the first really big splash for the Rosario release of Team System.  We'll be holding quite a few talks, doing lots of demos, etc.  Whether you are a customer or a partner, it should provide some valuable information.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Brian

We are nearing the end of the window for collecting Beta feedback on VS/VSTS/TFS 2008 SP1.  We are actively taking and working on feedback through the end of the month.  I haven't heard too much feedback yet.  I know it's hard to get excited about testing a Beta of an SP but if you have tried it, please let me know how it went.  If you haven't tried it but plan to, please try to fit it in over the next few days.  I'm tremendously grateful for any feedback you can give (good or bad).  We are trying really hard to make this SP1 upgrade as easy as we possibly can.

Thanks,

Brian

A few things that I've run across in the last few days...

1) If you have both TFS and Team Explorer installed on the same server, you may not upgrade just one of them to the SP1 Beta, you would need to upgrade both of them if you want to upgrade either of them.  If they are on different machines, there is not a problem.

2) When installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta on top of Visual Studio 2008, VS user settings are reset to default VS settings.  This bug is caused by code originally put in place to reset settings when upgrading minor version of VS, for example from VS Beta1 to VS Beta2 so that VS would have the latest default profile settings.  VS does migrate settings from VS 2005 to VS 2008.  VS certainly should keep user settings when upgrading to a service pack, which will be fixed for SP1.

Please backup your VS settings before upgrading to VS 2008 SP1 Beta.

Before installing SP1 Beta1, use the "Export Settings" wizard (“Tools” menu, “Import and Export Settings…”) to save your current settings, then install SP1 Beta1, and then use the wizard to import your settings back into VS.

Sorry for being a bit late to the game...  I should have posted yesterday but I've been drowning.  As you may already know, we released the Beta for 2008 SP1.  I'm eager to have you try it out and give us feedback.  You can find the list of new TFS features here.

I do, however, want you to keep in mind that it is a Beta and you shouldn't expect a completely seamless experience.  I installed the VSTS SP1 myself and it went pretty well.  The main thing I noticed was that I installed and it rebooted and then I had to install again (and reboot again) - the first install was .NET 3.5 SP1; the second was VSTS 2008 SP1.  After that, it ran great.

Before you install

It is imperative that you read the readme before you install.  It contains critical information about caveats for the Beta.

.NET 3.5 SP1 Readme - The .Net Framework update

VS2008 SP1 Readme - VS Pro or any of the VSTS role products.

VS Express Readme - All of the Express products.

Installing SP1 Beta

Visit this site for a great launching point to learn about, download and install SP1: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/cc533447.aspx

The VS patch will patch the .NET Framework, all of the Team System Role SKUs and the stand-alone Team Explorer.

The Team Foundation Server update will patch a TFS server, proxy or build server.  If you also want to upgrade (it's optional) to .NET 3.5 Beta 1 on those "servers", then you will need to separately also install the .NET 3.5 SP1 Beta patch.

Giving feedback

We will be taking Beta feedback until May 30th.  There are a variety of ways for you to give it.  We look forward to hearing from you.

SP1 Forum - http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2136&SiteID=1

SP1 Connect - https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio

‘Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Beta’ and .Net Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta´

Installation issues - http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2008/05/09/visual-studio-and-net-log-collection-utility.aspx

This blog is the best source of up to date information on installation issues.

A couple of things that I've seen come up...

• Once you've installed it, you will need to make sure you "View installed updates" on Vista to see the SP1 installation in "Programs and Features".
• The Beta 1 client is fairly difficult to uninstall.  See the read me above for info.  The good news is that if you install it on your "real" machine, you don't really have to uninstall it.  The final release will install directly over top of the Beta.  The TFS server Beta 1, on the other hand, must be uninstalled before installing the final release, but fortunately it's pretty easy.
• There are some complexities around installing TFS with pre-release builds of SQL 2008.  Read this blog post if you want to try it.  This technique can actually be used even if you aren't using SQL 2008 but is required if you are installing a new TFS install against a SQL 2008 server.

Brian

We've been publishing hotfixes for general download for a year or so now.  Although it has been reasonably popular, it never took off (in terms of publishing or downloads) the way I had hoped.  Part of the problem, I believe, is that the advertising/download solution we had was not very conducive to finding what you want.  We hope that problem has now been fixed.

Developer Division hotfixes are now being published on the new MSDN Code Gallery site.  It gives us the ability to tag hot fixes with key words and for you to refine your search for what you want.  I'm hoping it will really boost the usefulness of the service.  I am also going to work on increasing the volume and frequency of publishing hotfixes.

The home page of the site looks like:

If you then click on the "Hotfix" link in the dark grey area to the middle right, you will see:

Which is a list of all available hotfixes, including links to the Knowledge Base (KB) articles that describe them.  Clicking on "Tags" in the filter area just above the results allows you to further refine the list.  For example, clicking on "tfs", yields:

Which lists all of the Team Foundation Server hotfixes that are available.

We are working now on getting all of the TFS 2008 hotfixes posted and I hope they will be available within the next 2 or 3 weeks.

Happy hunting,

Brian

Terry Clancy has some very nice screen casts on his blog.  They are worth checking out if you have interest in these areas.

• He has one on X-Plat development with VS that includes an overview of Teamprise to X-Plat development using TFS and OpenMake for X-Plat builds.
• He has one on Requirements management with Visual Studio Team System - always a popular topic.
• And others...

Brian

We've gotten quite a few requests from customers over the past couple of months for more information comparing each of the VS 2008 product offerings.  We have just published a pretty massive feature comparison to help you pick the product that is right for you.  This comparison only includes the client products - not the server products like TFS.

Brian

It's nice to see that people in the "real world" are seeing benefits from our efforts to improve performance in VS 2008.

http://blogs.conchango.com/johnrayner/archive/2008/01/28/Design_2D00_time-perf-improvements-in-Visual-Studio-2008.aspx

Brian

Yesterday we released an update to VSS 2005 to address customer reported issues and ensure that it will work seamlessly with VS 2008.  Any licensed SourceSafe 2005 user can download and install the update here.  You can read more about the update on Richard's blog post.

We're eager to hear any feedback you have.

Thanks,

Brian

In my last post, I referred to "a couple" of VS2008 initiatives that we are breathing new life into.  In that post I talked about our specification sharing process for Rosario.  The second one we've been reinvigorating is our publicly available downloads.  In the later part of the VS2008 product cycle, the site went a bit stale.  We have updated with recent fixes and it now contains about 70 (and growing) available hot fixes.

Feedback we've gotten before is that having this available is a big help to you.  I hope this is still true and we are always looking for feedback.

Brian

During the VS 2008 product cycle, we started several new initiatives to increase transparency.  Some of them continued strong and some of them sputtered.  We are breathing new life into a couple of them.  The first to be reinvigorated it the specification publishing process.  We'll be publishing early previews of specs for our Rosario release here.  Right now, you will find 3 specs on TFS improvements there.  It is my sincere desire to increase both the count and breadth of the specs that are available.

To help focus the energy around the published specs, we have also created a forum for discussions around them.  I'm thrilled to see that someone has already read some of them and commented.  The more you read and comment, the more program managers will be motivated to publish their specs.  They all want the feedback but preparing specs for publishing has a cost and they don't want to do it unless people read them and give good feedback.  So... I hope this will be a virtuous cycle, that the more we publish, the more feedback you'll give and the more feedback you give, the more we'll publish.

It's important to keep in mind that by publishing specs before we've actually built the feature, we are giving you access to very early information that is highly subject to change.  In fact, that's the point.  We want you to help us change it by making it better before we build it rather than afterwards.

Matt Mitrik is the Program Manager here who is organizing the spec review process.  You can read more about it on his blog.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Brian

We are working on an update for Visual SourceSafe 2005 to make it work with VS 2008.  We had originally planned to have it available at the same time as VS 2008 downloads went live but we hit a last minute bug that is taking a little time to work out.  Our current expectation is that it will be available in mid December.  I will announce it as soon as it is.

In the meantime, if you need to use SourceSafe with VS 2008, there is a CTP of the update available - although it requires one manual work around for during installation.  You can read more about it on Richard's blog here: http://blogs.msdn.com/richardb/archive/2007/11/19/vs-2008-users-remember-to-download-the-sourcesafe-ctp.aspx

Brian

In my "questions..." post, I referenced a blog post by Richard Hundhausen detailing his bad experience using the Akamai download manager to get VS 2008.  It appears it has been a very hot topic in the blogosphere.  People have been working not stop to address the issues and we apologize for the problems.  We are moving to both patch the issues in the Akamai download manager and to provide more of the content via the MSDN download manager.  The problem, of course, is that we fear MSDN may not be able to handle all of the load so we are watching it carefully.  Status I saw on Tuesday showed an average download rate of about 10 Gbps across all of our servers netting an average of 1,000 downloads per hour.  That's a lot of bits flying across the wire.

Here is an excerpt of a response from the person at Microsoft responsible for the download infrastructure.  It has been posted on many blogs/forums:

"…Hi, we have recognized the variety of issues that need improvement ASAP, and your inputs have been great. We NEVER want our customers to be exposed to the system failures on any kind, but even with best of intentions, some issues creep up. We are working on the revision to the (third party) DLM 2.2.2.1 and trying to get the fixes in over the weekend. In the mean time, most critical downloads have been posted to MSDN's download service, so please download what you need from the MSDN Subscriber Downloads.

Based on your feedback, we are trying to implement the fixes to the following:

- DLM should download to Downloads by default (Vista)

- the proxy issue that crashes the IE if proxy server is enabled but the address field is left empty

- Retry on downloads: we have seen that if your session expires (you lose your network connection because PC goes to sleep, for example, and your MSDN session expires) the downloads can’t be restored (we are looking in to this)

- DLM cannot be restarted if you close it and try again later (session issue again)

A new DLM will be coming soon, by the end on 11/07 at the latest, and we are trying to hurry it up as soon as possible.

We recognize the inconvenience this caused you and others who experience it.  Thanks for your patience and support. We are doing all we can to make sure this does not happen again.

Thomas"

Again, we're sorry for the inconvenience.

Brian

Along with the RTM of VS/VSTS/TFS 2008 and .NET 3.5 this week, we have released a compatible version of the Visual Studio SDK.  The changes to the TFS portion of this SDK are fairly minimal.  We updated all of the TFS samples so that there are both VB and C# versions and we updated the TFS object model assemblies to the TFS 2008 versions so that you can build TFS 2008 applications now.

Beyond those TFS features, the new SDK also includes:

·         Visual Studio Shell development support

·         Enhancements in Domain-specific Language tools

·         New VB support for Visual Studio Package development and testing

·         Code samples and documentation covering toolbox controls integration, general IDE integration, Domain-specific Languages (DSL), Team Foundation Server extensibility, Data Designers extensibility , and other areas

·         Support for Run As Normal User in Windows Vista.

Enjoy!

Brian

Now that the 2008 wave of developer products has shipped I've seen a ton of questions about downloading and installing them.  In this post I'm going to tackle answers to all of the questions I've seen around VSTS/TFS.

1) Hey you guys say you shipped TFS but where do I get it?

This is the most common and, unfortunately, most complicated question.  There's a multi-part answer to that question depending on that exactly "it" is.

TFS 2008 Trial Edition - If you haven't purchased TFS 2008 yet or you want to try it out on a new server, you can download and install the TFS 2008 Trial Edition.  It can later be in-place updated to Standard Edition or Workgroup Edition.  You can download Trial Edition here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/aa700831.aspx

TFS 2008 Workgroup Edition - If you have purchase a Team System client product with MSDN, you also get a license for TFS Workgroup Edition.  You'll recall Workgroup Edition is a full version of TFS but is limited to 5 users and does not require CALs.  Workgroup Edition is available on MSDN subscriber downloads now.  I'm told you can get it from here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/default.aspx

In one of those weird twists of fate, I can't validate it myself.  Being a Microsoft employee, I don't have MSDN - I get everything from internal servers :)

TFS 2008 Standard Edition - I'm sad to say this is not going to be as simple as I wish it were - Your answer actually depends on how you buy TFS.

• Retail, also known as Full Packaged Product (FPP) – The retail SKU has been released and is available now. If you purchase TFS through a retail reseller, you can order it now, install it and you will have the properly license product ID that you need.
• Microsoft Volume licensing - The short of it is that the 2008 products will not go on the Microsoft price lists until January 2008.  This means there is no way to actually buy them in volume licensing until then.  However, MSDN subscribers can download 2008 products licensed under MSDN today through the MSDN subscriber download (as in the case of Workgroup Edition above).  The issue is that TFS Standard Edition is not included with any MSDN subscription - it is licensed separately.  Because of this, there is no way to get a TFS 2008 Product ID (PID) or the TFS 2008 Standard Edition download through volume licensing until January - when it is on the price list and you can actually buy it. In January, you should be able to download TFS and the corresponding PID from the MLVS site.
• Other – The story is basically the same as for Volume Licensing. In January, you will be able to call customer support and request your TFS 2008 Standard Edition Product ID.

So what are your options if you get TFS through volume licensing or software assurance. One option is certainly to wait until January to upgrade. Some of you may have already upgraded to a TFS 2008 pre-release or have other reasons for really wanting to upgrade to TFS 2008 Standard Edition before the end of the year. If that is your situation, I recommend you install TFS 2008 Trial Edition (link is above). We’ve tested it and confirmed that it can be used to upgrade TFS 2005 or TFS 2008 Beta 2 or RC. The TFS 2008 Trial Edition will expire after 90 days (note that this is different than TFS 2005 where the Trial period was 180 days). That gives you 90 days to acquire your proper TFS 2008 Standard Edition PID. Once you get it, you can run repair from Add/Remove Programs, enter the new PID and you’ll be set.

VSTS Client SKUs – This is a little less complicated because the vast majority of VSTS Client SKUs are sold with MSDN subscriptions and the SKUs are available on the MSDN subscriber download site now. And Full Packaged Product is available through resellers now.

TFS CALs – Some customers purchased a TFS CAL and use the Team Explorer stand alone, with VS Pro or with some other product. CAL users will need new TFS 2008 CALs – CALs are tied to a specific version of TFS. If you bought your CALs on Software Assurance (SA), then you are covered, if not, you will need to wait until January and buy new CALs. If you bought a VSTS client SKU, you will find Team Explorer on the client SKU media. If you just bought a CAL you can download Team Explorer 2008 from microsoft.com at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0ED12659-3D41-4420-BBB0-A46E51BFCA86&displaylang=en. Or, if you are downloading Workgroup Edition or Trial Edition anyway, you will find it in the download.

2) If I’m using TFS 2005 today, should I upgrade to SP1 before upgrading to TFS 2008?

No, that is unnecessary. Regardless of whether you upgrade to SP1, the result of installing TFS 2008 will be the same – a full properly installed copy of TFS 2008.

3) Do I need to install a separate TFS installation and move my databases from TFS 2005 to the new TFS 2008 server?

No. You can install TFS 2008 directly over top of your TFS 2005 server. All your data will be preserved.

4) How do I uninstall VS/VSTS 2008 Betas?

I’ve seen a fair amount of consternation over this since it’s not a simple one step operation. Scott Guthrie wrote a post about this: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/11/20/steps-to-uninstall-vs-2008-beta2-before-installing-the-vs-2008-final-release.aspx and one of our MVPs put together a script for it: http://blogs.infosupport.com/marcelv/archive/2007/11/21/Upgrading-Visual-studio-Team-System-Beta-to-RTM-uninstall-scripts.aspx

5) Do I need new CALs to go along with TFS 2008?

Yes. You will need a TFS 2008 CAL. Of course, if you buy a VSTS 2008 client product (Development, Architecture, Testing or Database Editions), it comes with the CAL. One of the fine points about CALs is that they work with the corresponding TFS version and all previous ones. So, if you buy a TFS 2008 CAL, you can use it with either TFS 2008 or TFS 2005. However a TFS 2005 CAL can only be used with TFS 2005. And, of course, if you bought your CALs with Software Assurance (SA) and are still within your SA period, you get the CAL upgrade at no additional charge.

6) I don't like this new Akamai download manager you are using for MSDN, what's up with it?

The truth is, I don't know.  I've seen some complaints about it (and therefore some things you should look out for).  Jeff Beehler has taken the action item to go talk to the release team about the concerns and see if anything can be done about it.  Read this post from Richard for some of the issues he has hit: http://richardsbraindump.blogspot.com/2007/11/problems-with-new-msdn-download-manager.html

7) When will Microsoft Certified Partners get their 2008 product upgrades?

They should arrive in your January 2008 Partner box.

As I see more questions roll in, I’ll periodically post a set of updates to make sure people’s questions are answered. Please comment on this post with any additional questions and I’ll answer them promptly.

Brian