How to get MCMS 2002 SP2, VS.NET 2005 and Team Foundation Server working together

As I dicussed earlier MCMS is not supported with Team Foundation Server. The reason is that the developer tools shipped with MCMS are incompatible with Team Foundation Server and raise an exception when items are checked in.

This might be a significant design limitation for customers, so I spent some time to identify a workaround for this problem. The problem is caused by the developer tools integration in VS.NET 2005. To get Team Foundation Server working with an MCMS template project it would be required to disable the developer tools for this specific project. To still allow users to manage template gallery item it would be required to use a standalone version of MCMS template explorer.

Here is the list of complete steps to get the setup working:

1. Extract the executable of the standalone template explorer into the following directory:
   \Program Files\Microsoft Content Management Server\DevTools
2. Add an icon to the start menu or the quick launch bar which points to the extracted TemplateExplorer.exe.

To disable the MCMS template explorer for a given MCMS template project you need to do the following steps once for every MCMS template project:

1. Close VS.NET
2. Edit “vwd.WebInfo” file in the desired MCMS template project and change the CmsEnabled property to 0:

   <UserProperties CmsEnabled=”0″/>

3. Now you can start VS.NET 2005 again and check in the templates as with any other web form project

As the integrated template explorer is now disabled you have to use the standalone version of MCMS template explorer to update template gallery items.