I am using Visual Studio 2013. Regarding TFS workflow, there are issues I have when working on a bug or work item, after I am finished, I move the changes into a shelfset for further review, undo my changes by right clicking on the pending changes and clicking undo. The move on to the next issue or enhancement. The shelfsets can be indpendendly reviewed and then applied to whatever branch they are currently needed.
The problem I have is that undoing through visual studio does not completely reset the solution to a completely clean state. There are often orphaned files around or projects that have references to non-existing files or other such problems. I'd like to be able to completely nuke and reset my solutions from source control as if I am a new developer and I have not found an easy solution to do this.
Currently, the only way I can accomplish this is to go to "Source Control Explorer" remove the file system mapping for the project. Go to the file system, removed the folder. Go back into "Source Control Explorer" add the mappings back in. And then "Get Latest Version".
Is there an easy way to completely reset a solution in Visual Studio with TFS?
You can achieve this in Visual Studio 2010 without Power Tools. Process is likely similar for other VS versions.
Open the Source Control Explorer. Right-click the entry you want to reset, then choose "Get Specific Version." Select the version you want to reset to. Ensure that the two checkboxes are checked:
☑ Overwrite writeable files that are not checked out
☑ Overwrite all files even if the local version matches the specified version
This will overwrite all locally mapped files with the server's version. (And will correspondingly take time proportionate to the number of files.) I do not believe that this operation will remove any unmapped files.
If you have the Power Tools installed, call tfpt scorch /deletes /recursive /diff. That should make your local folder match the server exactly.
You can also call tfpt treeclean, which will just delete any item that is not mapped to TFS. It won't update or replace any changed files though, like scorch will.
Had to change my computername and domain. Now I can't access team foundation. I tried this statement to fix it.
tf workspaces /updateComputerName:MyOldComputerName /s:"http://MyServer/MyCollection"
It didn't work. I get the following error "Key not valid for use in specified state."
Not sure what to do now.
It sounds like you may have a problem that will prevent remapping the workspace. However, it's possible that the command isn't quite correctly formed, so try checking the collection URL (I'd expect it to include MyServer:8080), and in versions of TFS 2010 onwards the documentation refers to /collection: rather than /s:
If that fails, then one approach to rescue things is to create a new workspace and delete the old one. You can transfer any edited files you had checked out to the new workspace as follows:
Rename your old source code folder, so you keep a backup
Create a new workspace that maps the (old) source code folder location, and Get the latest version of the code.
If you think you deleted or added files, use a folder-diff utility to find them, and manually re-do those changes.
Now check out everything (right click on the root folder and check it out)
Copy your backed up source code over your workspace folder
Undo checkout on everything. Visual Studio will ask if you want to discard your changes. Carefully choose the "No to all" option. This means it will only discard locks on unchanged files.
You will now have all changed files listed in your pending changes.
Once you're absolutely sure this has all worked, you can delete your backup of the source.
(You can achieve a similar thing by unplugging your network cable to force Visual Studio to go offline, moving your old source code back in place of your new workspace folder, then plug the net cable back in and using File > Source Control > Go Online. This should diff your code to the server and work out what changed. I don't trust this as much as the above approach though)
Once you have the code in your new workspace, you can use the tf command to delete the old workspace to clean everything up.
I have referred to a lot of forums and also this so question but my problem is that I have formatted my machine. So I'm not able to overcome this issue. I have tried deleting workspaces from visual studio command prompt and also clearing cache, but I feel this mapping is more on the server-side than local cache, because my machine was formatted. I don't know which file has this old working path saved.
Also I have tried downloading the project into a new working path. I was able to download, but then I don't get the TFS icon against each file. i.e.it's like working offline (disjoint from TFS database). On right click we generally have an option to return online or go online. In this case on right click I get TEAM -> Apply Patch & TEAM -> Share Project
Please help me with this.I had the same problem in my asp.net projects, when I simply downloaded them onto a new working path it worked fine. But this java project in eclipse just doesn't seem to connect to tfs when downloaded into a new path nor does it allow to download in the old path.
Please not I have formatted the machine.So my case is different, so this may not be a possible duplicate of other SO questions.
I did not disconnect or delete workspace before a format(due to lack of knowledge) at that point. May be doing that would never cause this.
All I did is check in all files and re-formatted my windows.
I'd suggest using the (free) tool TFS Sidekicks: http://www.attrice.info/cm/tfs/
This will give you a GUI to view all workspaces (across all users and machines), and delete the obsolete ones.
This is stored on the server, but the tf workspace command should be able to remove it for you. You will probably need to supply it with the correct machine name to find it:
tf workspaces /computer:* /owner:domain\jesse.houwing /collection:http://yourserver:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection
Find the missing workspace (the one that was formatted) and remove it from the server:
tf workspace /delete /collection:http://yourserver:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection workspaceName;domain\jesse.houwing
Do not confuse tf workspaces /remove and tf workspace /delete, the former only removes the registration from your machine, the second removes it from the server.
Or, if the computer name and the username have stayed the same, edit the workspace and delete the paths no longer valid (or update them to their new location) by changing the workspace configuration. Use
tf workspace workspaceName;Owner
to open the dialog to edit your current workspace.
Or use
tf workspaces /updateComputerName /updateUserName
To reassign the workspace from the old computer (iinstallation) or user to the new one.
I tried using the TFS sidekick tool, but even then, ran into access denied error. Then I had to manually clear off the files from this path:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft Team Foundation Local Workspaces
So this can be alternative, if you do not want to install a tool or your company does not allow you to install software from unknown sources on your laptops due to policies.
This already has a marked answer but my problem was solved without command line or additional software.
I had just recently updated to '15 and I was migrating my workspace folder to another drive as it was getting too big. The error being uninformative as it was, still appeared even after I deleted the workspace it cited...or so i thought. Both VS'13 and '15 by default made the same named workspace but one for each version. I had to reopen '13, and delete that workspace then move back to '15 where it would now let me remap my folder.
Hope this helps someone.
logout from previous user and login by new user.
Copy Project Folder to Another path.
In team Explorer Right click on project and Remove mapping.
Remap Project
go to Control Panel --> User Accounts --> Manage your credentials --> Edit tfs User Name
user name : your TFS user.
I solved it like this.
I had the same problem.
TFS workspace manager throw me this error:
"The working folder \PATH\ is already in use by the workspace my_computer_name name_of_previous_user on computer my_computer_name"
I solved this problem by creating user in TFS server and deleting the previous one.
U can go to TEAM> TEAM PROJECT SETTINGS > SECURITY.
& if u have permission- create your own user.
This is what I did to get it to work using Manage Workspaces in VS:
Click on Show remote workspaces, delete remote workspaces as I was not using them anyway, not sure if this was needed.
Created a new Workspace B and mapped to another folder Y and choose yes to download all files now.
Deleted original workspace A, mapped to Folder X.
Recreate original workspace A and remap to folder Y (wrong folder) and choose Yes to download all files now.
Delete Workspace B
Edit Workspace A, go to Advanced. At the bottom where it says Wroking Folders, change the Local Folder path back to folder X and choose yes to download all files now.
Not sure if you have to do all those steps but that is what I did to finally get this remapped, only took all day.
Why Why WHY doesn't TFS's get latest work consistently?
You would have thought that feature would have been tested thoroughly.
What I have to do is, get specific version, then check both overwrite writetable files + overwrite all files.
Is my local setup messed up or you do this also?
TFS redefined what "Get Latest" does. In TFS terms, Get Latest means get the latest version of the files, but ignore the ones that the server thinks is already in your workspace. Which to me and just about everyone else on the planet is wrong.
See this link: http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/srlteam/archive/2009/04/13/how-get-latest-version-really-works.aspx
The only way to get it to do what you want is to Get Specific Version, then check both of the "Overwrite ..." boxes.
Sometimes Get specific version even checking both checkboxes won't get you the latest file. You've probably made a change to a file, and want to undo those changes by re-getting the latest version. Well... that's what Undo pending changes is for and not the purpose of Get specific version.
If in doubt:
undo pending check in on the file(s)
do a compare afterwards to make sure your file matches the expected version
run a recursive 'compare' on your whole project afterwards to see what else is different
keep an eye on pending changes window and sometimes you may need to check 'take server version' to resolve an incompatible pending change
And this one's my favorite that I just discovered :
keep an eye out in the the Output window for messages such as this :
Warning - Unable to refresh R:\TFS-PROJECTS\www.example.com\ExampleMVC\Example MVC\Example MVC.csproj because you have a pending edit.
This critical message appears in the output window. No other notifications!
Nothing in pending changes and no other dialog message telling you that the file you just requested explicitly was not retrieved! And yes - you resolve this by just running Undo pending changes and getting the file.
TFS, like some other source control providers, such as Perforce, do this, as the system knows what the last version you successfully got was, so get latest turns into "get changes since x". If you play by its rules and actually check things out before editing them, you don't confuse matters, and "get latest" really does as it says.
As you've seen, you can force it to reassess everything, which has a much greater bandwidth usage, but behaves closer to how SourceSafe used to.
It's hard to respond to a statement without examples of how it's not working, but it's crucial to understand that TFVC (in "Server Workspace" mode, which was the mechanism prior to TFS 2012) does not examine the state of your local filesystem. TFVC Server Workspaces are a "checkout-edit-checkin" type of system where this is by-design, an intentional decision made to massively reduce the amount of file I/O required to determine the state of your workspace. Instead, the workspace information is saved on the server.
This allows TFVC Server Workspaces to scale to very large codebases very efficiently. If you are in a multi-gigabyte code base (like Visual Studio or the Windows source tree) then your client does not need to scan your local filesystem, looking for files that may have changed, because the contract you have with TFS is that you will explicitly check a file out when you want to edit it.
You are expected to not mark a file as write-only and change it without explicitly checking it out first. If you go down this route, then the server does not know that you have made changes to your file, and performing a "Get Latest" operation will not update your local workspace, because you haven't told the server that you've made changes.
If you do subvert this mechanism then you can use the tfpt reconcile command to examine your local workspace for changes that you have made locally.
If you find yourself using "Get Specific Version" and selecting the "force" and "overwrite" options, then it is very likely that you are in the habit of bypassing all of the enforcements that TFS has implemented to keep you from hurting yourself, and you should probably consider TFVC Local Workspaces.
TFVC Local Workspaces provide an "edit-merge-commit" type of version control system, which means that you do not need to explicitly check files out before editing them and they are not read-only on-disk. Instead, you simply need to edit the file, and your client will scan the filesystem, notice the change, and present this as a pending change.
TFVC Local Workspaces are recommended for small projects that do not require fine-grained permissions control, since they present a much nicer workflow. You are not required to be online, and you do not have to explicitly check files out before editing them.
TFVC Local Workspaces are the default in TFS 2012, and if they are not enabled for you, then you should ask your server administrator. (Organizations with very large codebases or strict auditing requirements may disable TFVC Local Workspaces.)
Eric Sink's excellent book Version Control By Example outlines the differences between checkout-edit-checkin and edit-merge-commit systems and when one is more appropriate than the other.
The Professional Team Foundation Server 2013 book also provides excellent information about the differences between TFVC Server Workspaces and TFVC Local Workspaces. The MSDN documentation and blogs also provide detailed information:
Decide between using a local or a server workspace
Server workspaces vs. local workspaces
Team Foundation Server – Trying to understand Server versus Local Workspaces
Team Foundation Server (TFS) keeps track of its local copy in a hidden directory called $TF.When you issue the "get Latest Version", TFS looks into this folder and see weather I have the latest copy or not. If it does it will not download the latest copy. It does not matter if you have the original file or not. In fact you might have deleted the entire folder (as in my case) and TFS won't fetch the latest copy because it does not look into the actual file but the hidden directory where it records changes. The flaw with this design is, anything done outside the system will not be recorded in TFS. For example, you may go into Windows explorer, delete a folder or file and TFS wont recognize it. It will be totally blind. At least I would expect there Windows would not let you delete this file but it does!
One way to enforce the latest copy is to delete the hidden $TF folder manually. To do that, go to command prompt and navigate to the root folder where you project was checked out and issue this command
rd/s $tf // remove $TF folder and everything inside it
If you want to just check the hidden folder, you can do it using
dir /ah // display hidden files and folders
Note: If you do it, the tf will think you do not have any local copy even though you have it in files and it will sync up everything again.
Caution: Use this method at your own risk. Please do not use it on critical work.
"Get latest version" by default will only download the files that have changed on the server since the last time you ran "Get latest version". TFS keeps track of the files you download so it doesn't spend time downloading the same version of the files again. If you are modifying the files outside of Visual Studio, this can cause the consistency problems it sounds like you are seeing.
Unfortunately, there has to be one or more bugs in TFS 2008, since this problem regularly crop up on developer machines and build servers where I work as well.
I can do Get Latest, I can see in the history list of the project that there have been commits after I last did a Get Latest, I have not touched the files on disk in any way, but after the "Get Latest" function has completed, when I check the TFS tab, some of the files still says that they're not the latest version.
Obviously TFS is able to determine that I have old files locally, since the list says so. Yet, Get Latest fails to do that, get the latest version. If I do what you did, use the Get Specific version, and check the two checkboxes at the bottom of the dialog, then the files are retrieved.
We changed our build servers to always use the Get Specific version type of function instead, so this part now works, but since our build server (TeamCity) also relies on checking if there have been changes to the files in order to kick off a build, sometimes it lapses into a "nothing changed, nothing to see here, move along" mode and does nothing until we forcibly run the build configuration.
Note that I have experienced this problem on a machine that is never touched, except for get latest + build, both manually, so there's nothing tampering with the files. It's just TFS getting confused.
One time this cropped up I verified that the files on disk was indeed binary identical to the version previously retrieved, so no manual tampering had been done with the files.
Also, I fail to see how TFS can "know" whether files have changed on disk or not without actually looking at the contents. If one part of TFS can see that the files are indeed not the latest version, then the Get Latest version should absolutely be able to get the latest version. This in reference to comments to other answers here.
It might because you are login TFS as the same user, and the workspace name (based on machine name by default) is also the same, so TFS thinks your are on the same machine and same workspace, thus you already have the latest version of the files, so it wont get them for you.
try rename your machine, and create a new workspace as a new machine.
Go with right click: Advanced > Get Specific Version. Select "Letest Version" and now, important, mark two checks:
The checks are:
Overwrite writeable files that are not checked
Overwrite all files even if the local version matches the specified version
WHen I run into this problem with it not getting latest and version mismatches I first do a "Get Specific Version" set it to changeset and put in 1. This will then remove all the files from your local workspace (for that project, folder, file, etc) and it will also have TFS update so that it knows you now have NO VERSION DOWNLOADED. You can then do a "Get Latest" and viola, you will actually have the latest
I had the same issue with Visual Studio 2012. No matter what I did, it didn't get the code from TFS source control.
In my case, the cause was mappings a folder + subfolder from the source control separately but to the same tree in my local HD.
The solution was removing the subfolder mapping using the "manage workspaces" window.
Most of the issues I've seen with developers complaining that Get Latest doesn't do what they expect stem from the fact that they're performing a Get Latest from Solution Explorer rather than from Source Control Explorer. Solution Explorer only gets the files that are part of the solution and ignores anything that may be required by files within the solution, and therefore part of source control, whereas Source Control explorer compares your local workspace against the repository on the server to determine which files are needed.
It could happen when you use TFS from two different machines with the same account, if so you should compare to see changed files and check out them then get latest then undo pending changes to remove checkout
This worked for me:
1. Exit Visual Studio
2. Open a command window and navigate to the folder: "%localappdata%\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\"
3. Navigate to the sub folders for every version and delete the sub folder "cache" and its contents
4. Restart Visual Studio and connect to TFS.
5. Test the Get Latest Version.
In my case, Get specific version, even checking both check boxes and undoing all pending changes didn't work.
Checked the work spaces. Edit current workspace. Check all paths.
The solution path was incorrect and was pointing to a deleted folder.
Fixed the path and get latest worked fine.
Every time this happens to me (so far) is because I have local edits pending on the .csproj project file. That file seems to keep a list of all the files included in the project. Any new files added by somebody else are "not downloaded" because they are not in my locally edited (now stale) project file. To get all the files I first have to undo pending changes to the .csproj file first then "get all". I do not have to undo other changes I have made, but I may have to go back and include my new files again (and then the next guy gets the same problem when he tries to "get all"...)
It seems to me there is some fundamental kludginess when multiple people are adding new files at the same time.
(this is in .Net Framework projects, maybe the other frameworks like Core behave differently)
just want to add TFS MSBuild does not support special characters on folders i.e. "#"
i had experienced in the past where one of our project folders named as External#Project1
we created a TFS Build definition to run a custom msbuild file then the workspace folder is not getting any contents at the External#Project1 folder during workspace get latest. It seems that tfs get is failing but does not show any error.
after some trial and error and renaming the folder to _Project1. voila we got files on the the folder (_Project1).
Tool:
TFS Power Tools
Source:
http://dennymichael.net/2013/03/19/tfs-scorch/
Command:
tfpt scorch /recursive /deletes C:\LocationOfWorkspaceOrFolder
This will bring up a dialog box that will ask you to Delete or Download a list of files. Select or Unselect the files accordingly and press ok. Appearance in Grid (CheckBox, FileName, FileAction, FilePath)
Cause:
TFS will only compare against items in the workspace. If alterations were made outside of the workspace TFS will be unaware of them.
Hopefully someone finds this useful. I found this post after deleting a handful of folders in varying locations. Not remembering which folders I deleted excluded the usual Force Get/Replace option I would have used.
I encountered the same problem:
My development server was corrupted and restored, but the information restored was from a few days ago.
TFS was updated that all the files are up to date, but in practice my files were correct a few days ago!
Nothing I did helped. get latest did not get the latest version.
At the end I got specific varision from a month ago. my files were updated accordingly, and then I did get latest.
And it worked. the files have been updated.
We're using Visual Studio 2008/TFS 2008.
We have a small team of developers and for some reason, periodically, when any of us "Get Latest," one of our paths remaps to a different path on it's own. This causes the "Get Latest" to start deleting files, because the path has changed. It's the same path every time that gets remapped to the wrong path.
Where are workspace definitions stored?
Is there something we may have checked into TFS that's causing this?
I have had this happen when I get while opening a solution. If the solution contains relative paths to other projects not under it's folder, that are mapped differently in your workspace, the GET will tell me it's remapping to account for it. Problem is the decisions that it makes are completely wrong.
The only way around it was to ensure that all developers use the same structure that sourcec control uses and havev that represented in each workspace.
Getting there was a pain though. basicly everyone had to delete all local copies of all files, redo workspace, CHOOSE NO TO 'GET' WHEN WORKSPACE CHANGED, close VS, open, GET LATEST.
The reason for that was if copies of projects exsisted local, even if those projects were NOT open, the GET would still be wrong. This was frustrating, because when checking for differences in those projects with latest there was no change, but when opening the solution that contained that project, dll references in that project would auto change. At that moment, no changes are pending on ANY file. But after building the changes would persist and cause the next get to be off again...
I'm sure this is all wrong, but that's what happened to us this week.
This is not normal behavior - sounds like something is going funny. Just wanted to check - all you are doing is simple get's from Source Control explorer correct? Also - all of you are on different machines? (I.e. you are not sharing a virtual PC image or anything where multiple machines have the same name)
One think I would check is to go to File, Source Control, Manage Workspaces and look at your working folder mappings both before and after the get and see if anything is changing. It shouldn't - if it does this might give us a clue as to what is happening.
You can also try clearing your workspace cache and remap it:
SET AppDataTF=%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Team Foundation
SET AppDataVS=%APPDATA%\Microsoft\VisualStudio
IF EXIST "%AppDataTF%\1.0\Cache" rd /s /q "%AppDataTF%\1.0\Cache" > NUL
IF EXIST "%AppDataTF%\2.0\Cache" rd /s /q "%AppDataTF%\2.0\Cache" > NUL
IF EXIST "%AppDataVS%\8.0\Team Explorer" rd /s /q "%AppDataVS%\8.0\Team Explorer" > NUL
IF EXIST "%AppDataVS%\9.0\Team Explorer" rd /s /q "%AppDataVS%\9.0\Team Explorer" > NUL
Ok i got it. Here is the solution.
First of all install Visual Studio 2008 SP1.(i suppose you have VS 2008 and Team Explorer already installed).
Now launch Visual Studio 2008, Goto Source Control and delete workspace.
Create a new workspace and make a source control folder to local folder mapping.
Click Ok. When it asks "Workspace has been modified, you you want to get latest", Select NO.
Now Close Visual Studio 2008.
Reopen Visual Studio 2008 and go to source control and Get Specific (with both check boxes checked for overwriting files).
If you have a asp.net web based solution, now is the time to create application pool, configure website in IIS, set proper authentication and authorization. Otherwise its optional!
Now goto the appropriate folder in source control and double click the solution file. You may also open the solution by double clicking the solution file in your local folder but i find it easier to open the solution from source control.
Doing the above step, if your website is configured, Visual Studio 2008 will automatically detect your website that you had setup and prompt you to confirm it. Click ok.
It will contact the source control server to see if synchronization is necessary or not. If you have a number of projects in your solution, you will observe the file-get progress bar quickly blink across your screen and your solution will be setup in minutes.
The real problem is of Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1. Without which TFS mapping gets corrupted. IF SP1 is installed and the above guide is followed there will be no problem.
The Workspace definitions are stored on the server.
If you go to the command line and type "tf workspace", you will see the definition of your workspace.