TF30331: Team Explorer could not connect to the Team Foundation server.

In the last couple of months I have been helping a lot of our customers migrate from Team System 2005 to Team System 2008.

Some customers did not have their licenses updated on the day that I came by to help them upgrade Team System. In order to perform the upgrade on that day, and let them continue working with Team System, I advised them to install the trial version of Team System and update the license key on a later date when they acquired the correct license key.

Unfortunately, some customers forgot to perform this upgrade and after 90 days of Team System running without any problems the developers got the following  error when trying to connect to Team System:

As the message states the trial edition of Team System had expired and the license must be updated to continue running Team System.

The question that I then got was, how can I update my license?

Well, the license can be updated in the following way:

1)      Open the “Add or Remove programs” dialog  (StartàControl Panel à Add or Remove programs)

2)      Select the “Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server” entry.

3)      Click the change/remove button. The Maintenance mode dialog of the Team System setup should appear.

4)      Select the “Upgrade to Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation server”.

5)      Enter the new licence key and click in the “Next” button.

The setup will now update the Team Foundation server license and you should be able to use Team System again.