Well B3 of TFS is now available on MSDN. I've been installing and testing builds leading to B3 for the last 3 weeks and B3 is solid. There are so many more feature than B2.
On of the new cool things is the Source Control Proxy server. This server basically caches files "gotten" by the first user, then all subsequent "get" are super fast. This server is designed to be used in a WAN scenario between two location that share a low bandwidth line. I'm sure you'll like if your in this situation. VSS was just sooo slow in WAN scenario... Good call from Microsoft to actually do this, it will help large enterprise make better decision in there choice of Configuration Management System.
Performance is also greatly improved all around the product. We can round-trip very large description from Excel and Project also good stuff.
I actually got Team Build to work and store data in the Warehouse to produce the cool reports we have been shown in slideware for the last year. Again cool stuff.
You will notice the polish of the product right from the install, there is a new "checker" that verifies the pre-requisite before going on. Note: When installing in a VM you will get an error, if you look at the error it will say that the Hardware is not to par with the requirements, you can ignore this and proceed with the install it works fine.
There are so many other things I could talk about but right now this is what comes to mind.
The overall feel of all the parts VSTS, TFS, the Team Explorer is that the quality bar as gone way up! Release is near....
Is it perfect, absolutely not, can it be improved on hell yes! But are we close to having an affordable Team Development environment I say fo sure!
Next Post, A few gotchas when installing single server TFS with domain controller.
Cheers,
ET