TF30177: Team Project Creation Failed after Fresh Team Foundation Server Install

If you’re getting this error after a fresh TFS and Team Explorer install, the first thing you should do is check whether you have Visual Studio 2008 SP1 installed.  If so, and you installed Team Explorer after SP1, that’s probably the problem.  You need to re-install SP1 to bring the Team Explorer bits up-to-date.  And no, it has nothing to do with permissions on the TFSREPORTS user; don’t waste your time.  Ignore the error description and explanation given.  Re-install Visual Studio 2008 SP1.  Restart.

Error
TF30004: The New Team Project Wizard encountered an unexpected error while initializing the Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Reporting plug-in.

Explanation
TF30171: The Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Reporting plug-in used to create the new team project could not be initialized and returned the following error: TF30224: Failed to retreive projects from the report server. Please check that the SQL Server Reporting Services Web and Windows services are running and you have sufficient privileges for creating a project.

User Action
Contact your Team Foundation Server administrator. <— don’t you hate it when that’s you? :)

Installing Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server with SQL Server 2008

Out of the box, you cannot install Team Foundation Server 2008 with SQL Server 2008.  You’ll get errors telling you that you’re using an incompatible version of SQL Server or that full text search isn’t installed or running.  So after re-installing different flavors of SQL Server 15 times, building a Windows Server 2008 image from scratch, re-installing SQL Server another 15 times on the new image, and 5 cups of coffee later, you might just end up contemplating a career change.  Or, you could just read this and get on with your life.

In a nutshell, you need TFS SP1 to work with SQL 2008.  And you need TFS to install TFS SP1.  :)  The solution is in this blog entry and requires an integrated install:

msiexec /a AT\vs_setup.msi /p SP1\TFS90sp1-KB949786.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Documents and Settings\MyUser\Desktop\ATSP1"