How To Upgrade Build Agent With Major Version Change on TFS 2017

Question

Recently upgraded an on premise TFS 2017 Server to Update 2 and I would like to upgrade the build agents to the latest agent the comes with this build. The new agent version is 2.117.2. I was able to upgrade an agent that was at version 2.112.0 by just selecting "Update All Agents" for a pool on the Agent queues tab. But when I try this on a pool that has agents at version 1.105.6 nothing happens. I am guessing this is because I am trying to update from a 1.x to 2.x. I am hoping there is a way to upgrade them and retain the history & builds associated with these agents. Is there a way to upgrade them, short of deleting them and adding them back again with the new version?

Answer 1

Nope. You'll need to manually remove the existing agent and set up the new agent version. You could certainly automate some pieces of it with a PowerShell script or the like to ease the burden.

The good news is that your build history has nothing to do with your agents -- existing build definitions will happily retain their existing information.