TL;DR; Troubleshooting TFS 2010 admin permission errors caused by not running TfsConfig as administrator, despite correct group memberships and server permissions.
I recently had a fun time trying to debug a permission issue I ran into using TFS 2010’s TfsConfig.
Update 5th March 2010 – In its style of true excellence my company has added rant to its “ Suggestions for Better TFS ”.
I was trying to run the TfsConfig tool and I kept getting the message:
“TF55038: You don’t have sufficient privileges to run this tool. Contact your Team Foundation system administrator."
This message made me think that it was something to do with the Install permissions as it is always recommended to use a single account to do every install of TFS. I did not install the original TFS on our network and my account was not used to do the TFS2010 install. But I did do the upgrade from 2010 beta 2 to 2010 RC with my current account.
So I proceeded to do some checking:
Am I in the administrators group on the server?
**Figure: Yes, I am in the administrators group on the server
**
Am I in the Administration Console users list?
Figure: Yes, I am in the Administration Console users list
Have I reapplied the permissions in the Administration Console users list ticking all the options?
**Figure: Make sure you check all of the boxed if you want to have all the admin options
**
**
Figure: Yes, I have made sure that all my options are correct.**
Am I in the Team Foundation administrators group?
**Figure: Yes, I am in the Team Foundation Administrators group
**
Is my account explicitly SysAdmin on the Database server?
Figure: Yes, I do have explicit SysAdmin on the database
Can you guess what the problem was?
The command line window was not running as the administrator!
As with most other applications there should be an explicit error message that states:
“You are not currently running in administrator mode; please restart the command line with elevated privileges!”
This would have saved me 30 minutes, although I agree that I should change my name to Muppet and just be done with it.
Each classification [Concepts, Categories, & Tags] was assigned using AI-powered semantic analysis and scored across relevance, depth, and alignment. Final decisions? Still human. Always traceable. Hover to see how it applies.
If you've made it this far, it's worth connecting with our principal consultant and coach, Martin Hinshelwood, for a 30-minute 'ask me anything' call.
We partner with businesses across diverse industries, including finance, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, technology, engineering, transportation, hospitality, entertainment, legal, government, and military sectors.
Qualco
New Signature
ALS Life Sciences
Epic Games
Lean SA
Trayport
Freadom
Healthgrades
Brandes Investment Partners L.P.
Higher Education Statistics Agency
Illumina
Xceptor - Process and Data Automation
Jack Links
Lockheed Martin
Graham & Brown
Teleplan
Microsoft
Big Data for Humans
Department of Work and Pensions (UK)
Washington Department of Transport
Nottingham County Council
New Hampshire Supreme Court
Washington Department of Enterprise Services
Royal Air Force
DFDS
Teleplan
Epic Games
Trayport
New Signature
Healthgrades