Moving solution files under tfs corrupts binding? - tfs

I'm relatively new to tfs so I did a mistake, I moved my (already under tfs) source code to another location (moved the solution folder to another destination), the problem is I have changed my source without checking-in my pending changes and now visual studio says that my "solution seems to be under source control but its binding information cannot be fond".
now how can I take my changes and apply it to the tfs(keep in mind that my solution is no longer under tfs binding)?

Start by restoring the binding of your solution with source control as described in: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181374(v=VS.100).aspx. If the source control system does not recognize that this solution has been moved after re-binding, add it as a new solution to source control and remove the old solution from source control.
Before performing any of these actions, always make sure you have a backup of the sources off-line.

Related

TFS not tracking changes if items added manually and not included into vs2015 solution

I've added a folder with asp.net core project which isn't supported by Visual Studio 2015 (which is used for everything else) and thus not included to the general solution.
To have those files in source control I had to manually add them using "add items to folder" command in source explorer. So they are checked-in but tfs not tracking changes for them anymore although there are differences that are shown if compare to the latest folder on the server:
How do I make TFS track them and show pending changes for edited files?
According to your description, looks like these files are all out side of Visual Studio.
Not sure if you are using server workspace or local workspace.
When adding or editing the workspace you click Advanced >> . There is a setting of Location: Local/Server.
For local workspace, when your script or anything else changes files outside Visual Studio, your workspace detects the changes automatically.
It also detects adds or deletes but you have to include them to your Pending Changes manually with the link under Excluded Changes.
For server workspace, you could choose to use Reconcile command. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/22860674/932282 for a complete answer.
Besides, you could also take a look at other solutions in below similar question:
How to have TFS 2010 detect changes done to files outside of Visual Studio?
Force TFS to detect changes
I think you just added them to source explorer and not to the solution, as you said. In this case, there is no editor application (even your VS) that is responsible for doing the check-out operation because they are not aware of TFS. On the other side, TFS can detect that changes have happened to the files but can not track them.
If you do not activate the "Get the latest version before check-out" option in your team project, then you can go to the source control and check-out those files manually and then check-in them manually again when your work with them is done.
Please before doing this, take a backup of your source code for caution.

How to clone a solution in Visual Studio Online?

I have various solutions checked in to a VSTS online account.
Sometimes I have the need to create a new solution from a copy of the code of another, and then to check this back in to VSTS to work on as a separate project.
Is there an easy way to do this in Visual Studio?
In Source Control Explorer there is the Move option, but why not a Copy option?
(I am not talking about branching)
Move is a in effect a combined operation done atomically by TFS. Its essentially a delete and rename. It also retains history.
The following image shows moving a file and then moving it back. You can see the change to see what TFS did to the file.
If you are talking about taking code files from one location and copying to another, it's essentially a local file level operation. From a TFS point of view, it would be simply an "add" operation that you would need to do explicitly.
Copy does not make much sense when using a source control system.
As suggested by others you can make a branch, as this will give you the result you want. This could be seen as a copy, besides it not taking up space for the duplicated files.

How to check in mass changes into TFS

I have a situation where a developer made mass changes to a project outside of TFS (long story), and now we want to put those changes back into TFS (files added, removed, renamed).
Of course, TFS is not like Git; if I check out the project, then delete the files from the workspace and copy over the new files, TFS won't adapt to those changes.
I have discovered that I can do a Compare from File - Source Control, and that the Compare screen allows me to mark files as added/deleted. This helps, but is a slow process for a large project, and quite prone to human error.
So, my question is: Is there an automated way to get TFS to simply add all new files and remove all deleted ones?
I don't care about tracking history of renamed files--they can be
considered "removes" and "adds."
I have tried unbinding and rebinding the workspace; this did not work for me (or I didn't do it correctly).
I am using VS 2015, TFS 2015, and I have the TFS Power Tools.
If you are using a Local Workspace then you should be able to get latest on the workspace, then copy over all the new files in Windows Explorer which will generate pending changes and file adds.
If you go into Pending Changes in Team Explorer you will have lots of detected changes for new files etc. but you can promote them to included changes.
This isn't going to deal with file renames or deletions though so it might not be the best solution.
Alternatively you could use Reconcile Changes in Version Control
In Source Control Explorer, right-click a folder, and then click Compare.
In the Compare dialog box. select the folder versions to compare.
In the Folder Difference window, right-click the folder or file you want to reconcile, and click Reconcile.
This will allow you to choose what to add or change to version control
You might try using tfpt online. I would add the /adds /deletes /diff /recursive flags as well.
I think in almost any case you will have some conflicts/manual work to do here.
There is a blog post on a possibly similar situation that used tfpt online as well: Discover File Changes Made Outside of Visual Studio
Since I did not get to try the above suggestions, I'll post the workaround I did, in case it helps anybody else. Hopefully, the above suggestions are better than what I ended up doing.
Make sure nothing is checked out
Open solution
Team - Go Offline
Close solution
Windows Explorer - Copy latest source folder into the current source folder (Windows Explorer will do a Merge).
VS - Open solutin, select solution file
File - Source Control - Advanced - Change Source Control
if you get a message about unloaded projects, make sure all projects loaded. Click "Reload" on those that didn't.
Shift to select all project, click Bind
Do a Compare in Source Control Explorer. Manually add all new files. Manually delete all deleted files. Frown.

Complete nuke all changes in visual studio and reset from TFS

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.

Can TFS Pending Changes show files that are truly changed like SourceGear Vault?

I have been using SourceGear vault for some personal projects and Team Foundation Server for work projects. One thing TFS is missing is a simple feature that Vault has on its check in dialog window.
In the Vault client, you can see if the checked out file changed from the previous version checked in. Here is a screen shot. Notice the column "Details"? That tells you there is a difference. The way this is super helpful is if you have to check out a entire project because you are going to do code re-generation. I'll check out my class library project and then regenerate my CodeSmith templates. Doing this may result in just a few specific files from changing. When I view the pending check-in screen, I see the files that really changed and I can compare to see the impact.
SO... can TFS do this? Maybe there is a 3rd-party tool that will do it for me? Is there a TFS SDK or PowerTool that I have to get. Anyone want to build it?
Select all the files in "Pending changes" window and activate the context menu. Then click "Undo..." > "Undo Changes" > "No to All".
The files without changes will be rolled back.
Per this page, you can run this command from the Visual Studio Command Prompt.
tfpt uu /noget /r *
You'll need to have TFS Power Tools installed for this to work. Also, make sure you browse to the root of your mapped folder within the command prompt (ie - C:\TFS for example).
TFS Power Tools links (if you don't already have it)
TFS Power Tools for 2010
TFS Power Tools for 2012
There is no need to undo the unchanged files, as TFS will notice they're unchanged upon checkin and will only associate the truly changed files. Any files checked out but unchanged are reverted to their last known checked in version and will not be associated with your checkin. It is impossible in TFS (though not very clearly documented) to check in an unchanged file. It will always revert to the previous version if there are no changes.
You can quickly undo your unchanged files by calling 'tfpt.exe uu /r' from the command line (you need to have the Team Foundation Power tools for this) or by using the "Undo unchanged" button in the Pending changes window. This removed any items from the list that are unchanged immediately. So that you can see exactly what you're checking in.
Though it might be that this option is added by the Team Foundation Power Tools or the TFS Source Control Explorer Extensions (which are a must have for every TFS user anyways).
See also:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/2100981/736079
https://stackoverflow.com/a/6387656/736079
https://jessehouwing.net/vsts-tfs-why-i-like-them/
I don't like answering my own questions, but it looks like there might not be a real Microsoft solution out there. For me, this is how I handle the problem at the office using Visual Studio.
Before I re-generate the business objects, I make a copy of the entire folder structure
I check out the entire project or the root generated folder
I start the code generator. Sometimes, I know exactly what is changing, but other times, I might make a lot of changes and I don't want to miss anything. My code generator at work also generates all the SQL files needed to DROP / CREATE stored procedures.
Using SourceGear DiffMerge, I compare the folders of the just generated and the previously backed up folder.
This is pretty time consuming. I never thought of it as a problem until I saw Vault identifying that a file was different on disk from the repository.
Maybe you all can say how you do code generation / regeneration when working with a source control repository.
I work in a corporate development environment where many developers may be working on the same file, and we have TFS as our source control as well. In our document of Best Practices for TFS, we really discourage checking out files that the developers don't intend on changing, that way we naturally exclude files without differences when submitting a changeset.
To answer your question, I normally just look at the "Pending Changes" window and run a Compare on the "changed" files that I'm unsure of--the Compare tool should immediately tell you if your local copy is the same as the server copy. Unfortunately, there's no real workaround other than what I suggested, but I don't see the scenario where I absolutely must check out an entire project branch for editing.

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