How can I move/copy a TFS Build Definition to a new Team Project?

Question

We recently migrated to TFS 2010, and have created a new Team Project. (The old one was created in 2005, and seems to be missing key metadata to allow full functionality in 2010). We've copied all our source, and have figured out how to copy our work items to the new team project, but we can't figure out how to migrate our build definitions.

Is there a way to do this, or will we have to re-create them manually?

Thanks!

[EDIT]

Jeff-thank you for the reply! After reading it, and more deeply considering my situation, I realize that my description (and probably my entire question) was flawed.

We originally upgraded our 2008 team project to 2010. It had previously been upgraded from 2005. Up to this point, we've been using CruiseControl.Net to manage our builds. One of our team noticed that our upgraded project was missing some key metadata, and theorized that stuff had not been added in the migration process, so he created a new 2010 team project and imported our source as a test. Now we have two 2010 team projects: the originally migrated one (that we're all using), and the "from-scratch" one.

In the meantime, I was experimenting with TFS Build on the originally migrated project. I created a dozen or so builds, and was refining them, but we haven't moved off of CC.Net yet.

The decision was made to start using the "from-scratch" project, so I was hoping to somehow copy the builds from one project to the other. I don't see a way to do that... there is no build proj file to copy (TFS seems to keep the build definitions internal in 2010).

Answer 1

Normally, when you upgrade to TFS 2010, any build definitions you previously had will be automatically upgraded with the associated Team Project. It sounds like, at least in your case, that your Team Project did not upgrade completely/correctly so you had to start over with a new Team Project.

To copy your build definition, you will need to:

1. Copy the TFSBuild.proj file(s) from your old Team Project to the new Team Project - under whatever version control folder makes sense.
2. Create a new TFS 2010 build and select the Upgrade Template (in the Process tab).
3. Set the Configuration Folder Path property to the location of the copied TFSBuild.proj file copied in step 1 above.
4. Fill in the remaining required settings.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

There's been significant changes to how builds are done from TFS 2008 to TFS 2010. One of the reason's why it appears that 'stuff has not been added to the migration process' is because it just does not exist. Even upgrading from TFS 2005 to TFS 2008 had a bit desired in it's completeness.

Jeff provided some good guidance to use the Upgrade Template, this will actually call the tfsbuild.proj file that was carried over from TFS 2008.

As a good practice, you'll want to create a copy of the DefaultTemplate when a new build definition is created for a corresponding relationship. Do this while creating the build definition in the process part of setup. There is a detail expansion arrow that will allow you to create a new, which is a copy of the default, and name it whatever you like. Unless of course there will be absolutely no customization done to the build definition or all of the builds in that project will be following exactly the same steps. i.e.: dev_sso_ci (build definition) corresponds to dev_sso_ci.xaml in the BuildProcessTemplates folder.

Hope this helps too.