This morning I had an interesting message pop-up whilst on client site trying to connect to their Team Foundation Server source control.

"TF30072: The Team Foundation Server trial period has expired or its license is otherwise invalid. Install a licensed edition of Team Foundation Server to continue."

So I realised that 6 months prior at the start of the project the client did not have an MSDN subscription and the Trial edition was installed. Why not it has all the features :)

The problem was that when MSDN was purchased the server was running hunky dory and was forgotten about from a licencing point as we were going to move it eventually to Team Foundation Server 2008.

I started to get cold sweats /* not really but it sounds dramatic :) */ thinking that I would need to uninstall and then reinstall, what if the SQL Server 2005 database was a trial as well! Yeh gods it was a great way to start after 5 lovely days off.

But alas, the solution proved to be simple. You'll need to log on to the server itself and be a person who has permission to modify programs. Best bet to get the sysadmin to do whilst you are looking over his shoulder (you can blame him if anything goes wrong :D)

Sorry no pretty pictures as it was on the server and too much trouble.

1. On the Team Foundation server, click Start, click Settings, and then click Control Panel.

2. In Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs.

3. In Add or Remove Programs, click Change or Remove Programs. Click Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, and then click Change/Remove.

4. In Maintenance Mode Options, select Upgrade to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, type the product key for your Team Foundation Server, and then click Next.

5. Click Finish

That's it sweet as :)

Note: You do need to have a valid licence key and the services will restart but then again you can't access the source anyway so restarting services shouldn't bother you.

I later found an MSDN article with more information but really it was quit simple.