Install Team Foundation Server Power Tools side-by-side

If you're like me, then you probably have more than one version of Visual Studio installed on your system. And you might be connecting to multiple versions of TFS as well. Currently I have Visual Studio 2010, 2012 and 2013 installed on my laptop and I connect to TFS 2010, 2012, 2013 and Visual Studio Online on a regular basis.

I've found that the Visual Studio Power Tools add a lot of valuable tricks to Team Explorer and offer some features on the commandline that you'd otherwise need to build your own custom tools for. However, some of the commands must be executed from the TFS server and some of the items that are installed are targeting a specific version of TFS.

As long as you install the Power Tools for "all users" on your machine and have installed the matching Team Explorer version (and patches), you can install them side-by-side, except for one feature, the Windows Explorer Extensions.


You can download the Visual Studio TFS Power Tools for your client and/or server version here:

2005. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Power Tools - September 2007 release
2008. Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Power Tools - October 2008 Release
2010. Team Foundation Server Power Tools December 2011
2012. Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Power Tools
2013. Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Power Tools

If in doubt which version of the Visual Studio to use or which version of the Visual Studio Developer Command Line to open, have a look at the table below (created based on experience, this table doesn't list what Microsoft does or does not support).

Some features are marked with "Use Matching server version". These need to be used from the same Visual Studio and Power Tools version as your TFS server.

Feature	Action
Best Practices Analyzer	Install on server, match server version
Check-in policies	Install for each client version
Process Template Editor	Use matching server version
Storyboard Shapes	Use matching server version
Team Explorer Enhancements	Install for each client version
Team Collaboration Tools	2012 and 2013 version won't work with TFS 2010 and below.
Team Foundation Power Tool Command Line (tfpt.exe)	Install for each client version
addprojectportal	Use matching server version
addprojectreports	Use matching server version
annotate
bind
Branches
Builddefinition	Use matching server version (see comments)
buildprocesstemplate	Use matching server version
Connections
Createteamproject	Use matching server version
Getcs
Online
Query
Review
Scorch
Searchcs
Treeclean
Unshelve
Uu
Workitem
Test Attachment Cleaner	Use matching server version
Windows PowerShell Cmdlets	Install only highest client version
Windows Shell Extensions	Install only highest client version
Work Item Templates	Install for each client version
TFS Backup Plan wizard	Install on server, match server version (part of TFS server installation since 2012u3)

Note: The TFS Client Object Model prevents these tools from making any changes that can hurt your TFS installation. So some commands might give you an error when executing. In these cases you need to use the Visual Studio and Power tools version that matches your TFS server version.