Once I installed Visual Studio 2008 it was time to add the Team Explorer for Visual Studio 2008.  The Team Explorer aka Team Foundation Client is found on the Team Foundation Server installation DVD.

So I took the .ISO file which I downloaded from MSDN and copied the TFC folder which contains the Team Explorer installation onto an actual DVD.  This gave me a copy of just the Team Foundation Client 2008 which I could install onto my development machines.

I put the DVD into my Vista/Office 2007 machine and kicked off the install.  The install ran and after things were going I moved onto another machine.  When next I checked I found that the installation had failed.  So I reported the failure via the automated process that the install package provided and tried again.  The install failed again - which left me... concerned.

So I took the DVD out of my Vista machine and moved to my Windows XP / Office 2003 machine and ran the installation.  While that was running I started searching the web for any known installation errors with Team Explorer 2008.  I finally found a note in the Microsoft MSDN Forums that mentioned someone else was having an install problem and found that it went away when they used the install from a DVD which had all of the TFS products, as opposed to a CD with only the TFC folder.

Now what was interesting is I found this as my Team Explorer install on Windows XP with Office 2003 completed successfully.  In other words on an XP machine running Office 2003 you only need the TFC directory to install Team Explorer.

So I went to my .ISO file and burned a DVD of the entire image this time and put it into the Vista/Office 2007 machine.  I must admit I really like the updated install package for the TFS product, having the different product options available is a nice way of handling the different install packages.  At any rate I clicked on the Team Foundation Client and started the install.  The first and subsequent screens to start the installation looked just like the stand-alone DVD's and the install started with the same packages.  However, in this case the installation ran to completion.

Thus if you are using Windows XP with Office 2003 you can install a standalone installation package for Team Explorer however, if you are running Vista or Office 2007 and you get an installation error - then make sure you get a copy of the full Team Foundation Server (TFS) DVD and run the install from that media.