Cleaning up old build agents after TFS Upgrade

Question

In the tbl_BuildServiceHost table I have a few entries for build agents that no longer exist. All of the old agents were from a past version of TFS. The data was brought over because all TFS databases were restored to new hardware as part of the TFS 2013 upgrade.

In any case, is there a way to tell TFS that these agents no longer exist so that these old entries will be removed from the database? It is also worth noting that these machines are not visible through the UI. As far as I can tell, they only show up in this table.

Should I even be concerned by this? I just don't want it to cause any problems.

Answer 1

When I was young I took everything apart to see how it worked, and somehow there was always a screw or a spring left over after I had reassembled it. I learnt a lot, but I also ended up with lots of things that didn't work properly.

My advice: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Especially if "it" is TFS.

Or to put it another way, what is the benefit to making any changes?

(If you do feel tempted to play with the database I'd suggest duplicating the server into a sandbox that you can safely write off - it's so easy to break TFS. Remember to never, ever, push a change you made to the TFS databases to production. If you do Microsoft will no longer be able to support you. Its like jail-breaking your iPhone, it will void your warranty.)