TFS & Visual Studio ALM – by Neno Loje

Answer: There is no standalone “Team Explorer” release for TFS 2015 (obviously Team Explorer still exists as part of the Visual Studio IDEs).

There are three possible replacements:

• The primary alternative is to use TFS Web Access, which does not require any installation.
• For users needing the MS Excel and MS Project Professional integration, it’s made available as a separate installer, together with with the Storyboarding for MS PowerPoint plug-in at:
  Microsoft Team Foundation Server Office Integration 2015 Update 1
• Last, but not least – if users require a lightweight version of Visual Studio, the the recommendation is to use one of the Visual Studio editions, like one of the Visual Studio Express editions, which are available for free at: https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-express-vs.aspx (make sure to scroll to the bottom).

Note: There are no .ISO images available for the VS Express Editions. The only way to create an offline installer is to run:

<executable name> /layout
(according to MSDN)

I’ve done this for all three VS 2015 Express Editions (Update 2):

Conclusion: VS Express 2015 for Web is the smallest download and what users can use as the new “Team Explorer 2015”.

–Neno

Updated (March, 29): Fixed wrong file size for VS for Windows Desktop and added TFS Web Access and  TFS Office Integration as alternatives.

Updated (April, 1):  Not April Fool’s, but the offline file sizes in the just released Update 2 are so much bigger, that it made sense to update the post.
(Thanks to Richard Hundhausen for letting me know).