Running multiple versions of Vault client

[tjruska]

Here is my scenario. Just upgraded to Vault 3.5.3 two weeks ago after months of planning and it was successful. Most of our .Net applications are on Visual Studio 2003. Now I am getting requests for Visual Studio 2008 and come to find out that the version of Vault which I just upgraded doesn't support IDE integration with VS 2008! Is this really true? What are my options?
Can I have the Vault client 3.5.3/VS 2003 running on the same PC as the Vault client 4.1.3/VS 2008? Are there some registry setting that one would need to tweak when using the old vs. the new configuration? Is there a workaround to have VS 2008 work with a lower version of Vault. Just trying to gather the facts and present some options to the teams.

TIA, Tom

[lbauer]

One option is to upgrade further to Vault 4.1.x, which works with both VS 2003 and VS 2008. You'd need to upgrade both client and server, as 4.1 clients can't communicate with 3.5.x servers and vice-versa.

You could try VS 2008 with Vault 3.5.3. It can integrate in the same way that VS 2003 does, Classic Client style. The only caveat is that we haven't tested Vault 3.5.3 with VS 2008, so you could run into bugs.

If you need two different versions of the client to connect to both a 3.5.3 and 4.1.x Vault server, let me know. We have some workarounds.

[tjruska]

So far my initial testing of using the v3.5.3 client with VS 2008 Pro SP1 seems to be working fine. The basic operations work as expected. Will do some more thorough testing. I am interested in your workaround for having the 2 versions of the client connecting to a 3.5.3 and 4.1.x server from the same PC from VS 2003 and VS 2008.

-Tom

[lbauer]

Here's a way you might be able to use both a 4.1.x client and 3.5.x client on the same machine, pluse use Visual Studio 2003 and 2008:

First, install the Vault client 3.5.x, if it's not already on the machine. Then copy the files in the Vault client 3.5.xdirectory and put them into a folder somewhere else on your drive. Then install Vault client 4.1.x. You should be able to use each client from its own directory.

The tricky part is IDE integration. So that there's not a conflict, use new Visual Studio Enhanced client integration with Vault 4.1.x. The installer adds several registry entries for Enhanced client integration.

VS 2003 only uses Classic integration. Be sure to edit the registry to set the path to the Vault 3.5.x client directory (see below).

Or if you are using Classic Client integration with both clients, you would need to make some registry changes for Source Control Provider when you switch between clients.

The path to the integration DLL is in the registry under this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\SourceGear\Vault Client

You will need to change this path to the proper client directory, depending on which Vault client version you are using for your Classic IDE integration.

Here's more information on the new options for IDE integration:

http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=8535

[tjruska]

Update regarding the interaction of VS 2008 Pro SP1 and the 3.5.3 client:
All was well until I tried an Add or Delete. Every other operation works fine.
When adding or deleting an item, one gets this error:

vs2008_err1.jpg (16.47 KiB) Viewed 4621 times

Answering No yields this error:

vs2008_err2.jpg (11.9 KiB) Viewed 4622 times

If using the 3.5.3 client isn't officially supported or recommended, please advise. Or if there is a work-around other then working disconnected (which really isn't an option in our case), please let me know.

-Tom

[lbauer]

I assumed in my my previous post that you would use VS 2003 with Vault 3.5.3.

We haven't tested Vault 3.5.3 with VS 2008. Full support came in Vault 4.x. We have had some reports from users who have used it successfully with 3.5.3.

You might try unbind and rebinding the project, or doing an Open from Source control into a new working folder.

[tjruska]

I am using VS 2003 and VS 2008 with 3.5.3. I did some more investigation and it appears that the Projects and Solutions settings within VS 2008 were pointing to the folders for VS 2005. Once I corrected those settings to use the correct version in the IDE, things are behaving much better and as expected.
That's what happens when you have VS 2003/2005/2008 on the same PC.

Thanks again for you help.

-Tom

[lbauer]

Thanks for the update. Glad you got things sorted out.