Using TFS source control - how to remove files - tfs

I am a lone developer, and I am now using TFS 2010, having until recently used VSS.
I have not found it easy to get any books for beginners to help me use this.
So I have now got my project in source control. But when I check in I get references to a number of files that I no longer use. How do I remove files from the TFS Source Control repository?
So in the example below, you can see lots of files from different projects that I do not want to see.

Click on the last icon that looks like a solution (.sln) file icon (last icon on the top vertical row). It's right next to the refresh icon and just above the "Comment" box. That should clear all non-related project files, and only show the files on your current project.

In Source Control Explorer in Visual Studio, simply right-click on files and folders and choose "Delete". Then right-click again and choose "Check-in pending changes".

You need to Destroy those files first, then only those files will get removed from source control.
You can't make any changes in those files - they remain in source control until you destroy them permanently from TFS.
For more info about how to destroy see TF Destroy command utility.

The files in your screenshot are (mostly) listed as add - they are not in TFS yet, so deleting them from TFS is not what you want. Rather you want to ignore them, though that can be tricky: How to ignore files/directories in TFS for avoiding them to go to central source repository?

Related

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.

Visual Studio 2015 - Merge tool button missing

I'm having problems with merge tool in Visual Studio 2015. I didn't need the merge tool for the longest time, I haven't used it for couple of months. Now when I need it I can't find it. I was trying to google and find an answer, checking VS settings but with no success. I can only see buttons 'Overwrite Local File or Folder' and 'Keep Local File Contents'. When I press Compare button, I see diff tool but I'm not able to accept changes (check buttons are missing).
What am I doing wrong? How can I merge two files?
Please navigate to files in source control
Right click on file/folder you want to branch>>Merge
Full list of other solutions.
This is because these files in your local folder are not been tracked by TFS Version Control. For example, you added a file "readme.txt" in you local folder and hadn't check-in them into version control. Another people in your team also added this file in the same relative path and checked it into version control. Now, when you get the latest version or check in your changes, you will get the behavior as your screenshot. A similar question can be found here: TFS Conflict Type: Writable File - A writable file by same name exists locally
It's doing exactly the same things in Visual Studio 2017.
If you had a problem in workspace and you rollback it from a save, you can have the same issue.
You need to rebind some of the project by yourself first like the asked question here : Re etablish TFS source control bindings, then if all is going well you will see the button.
If it's not working, try to use external merge tool which will allow you to edit thoses files.

Force TFS to detect changes

Seems like this should be something very simple, but I can't find how to do this...
I made a changes to several files spread within a repo by using a script that I wrote. Problem is TFS in its infinite wisdom does not think the files have changed. Aside from manually finding each file and clicking "checkout for editing" is there any way to tell TFS to just rescan everything and detect changes?
A Folder Compare (File->Source Control->Compare...) should do the trick. Select the top folder from where to start comparison, and select to compare with Latest Version. The result hould show files that are changed, and whether they are checked out or not.
TFS has a "Reconcile" command for this. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/22860674/932282 for a complete answer.
Local Workspace
You need to work with a local Workspace. Here's how to manage workspaces:
visualstudio.com: "Create and work with workspaces".
When adding or editing the workspace you click Advanced >> . Then you set Location: to Local.
Now 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
BUT BE CAREFUL. When adds or deletes get detected and you add them to your Pending Changes, the files aren't automatically included to your project. So you maybe check them in to TFS, but they aren't listed under the Solution Explorer.
Matt Burke has a fix for that problem:
mattburkdev.com: "Automatically Include All Files in Folder in Visual Studio"
To edit the Project file you rightclick your project, chosse Unload Project, then rightclick on it again and choose Edit. After you edited the project files save and close it. Then rightclick and chose Load Project.
But with that you also need to be careful, because the Project only searches for new files in these folders to include, when you load the project and not while you have the project open. So when some files get added outside Visual Studio, you just reload the project.
Server Workspace
But if you have to stick to a Server Workspace for some reason i got another trick for you:
FIRST:
Check out all Files that maybe have pending changes (better check out many files). Then go to Team Explorer -> Pending Changes and choose all files you just checked out. Then choose "undo changes". After this you get a message "Confirm Undo Checkout". This message ONLY pops up for the files, which actually HAVE changed! Press "NO" for each files or "No to All".
FINALLY: Under pending changes all files get removed from the list except the ones which have pending changes.
I hope I could help someone and you didn't have to search for this solution as long as I had to ^^
If any of your changes occured when you were offline, you can go to File > Source Control > Go Online, and all files will be checked for modification.
If none of the above work, you can also try to rebind your projects by going to File -> Source Control -> Advanced -> Change Source Control.
In Visual Studio 2015:
Source Control -> Advances -> Refresh Status
I had this problem a while age when i moved project from one pc to another.
the solution was to remove temporary files that TFS had created in solution folder.
Delete .vs and hidden $tf folder.
If no luck,on your local PC copy your solution folder to another, remove all files inside solution, get latest version from TFS server ,then from the copied folder just grab neccessary and edited files and put them back to solution folder (this will overwrite some files).
After all don't forget to check project mappings and if everything seems correct try right clicking on solution and 'Add to source control' option.
Dtsx file dropped in TFS folder was not being recognized.
On your Visual Studio (2015) home screen, click on the Team Foundation Server link. Make navigate to the correct branch.
On the window on the left side of the screen, navigate to the folder that contains your file. Expand the folder.
To the right of the folder you will see three dots. Click on those and then click on “ + Add File(s)”.
Choose “Upload Existing Files”. Then you can drag and drop your .dtsx files into the window and then click Okay.
Finally, you’ll have to do a ‘Fetch’ to add the files there. Then you need to do a ‘Pull’. Lastly, you can commit the change to remote branch.

Using TFS to manage mockups, other images?

I have a TFS server and I often work from two places. I'd like to have a folder that I just keep my random PSDs, mockups, etc in. Maybe even text file notes, or whatever.
The problem is, when I "Check in" a project, it only includes files that are included in the solution. Is there a simple way to have a folder always included?
For instance right now I just have a "mockups" folder in the root of my Team Project (above any individual project folders), but it's not part of any project or solution (I don't really want to publish a few megs of PSD files every time I publish my project).
You can create a Solution folder in your Solution and add the files as an existing file.
(or what is a solution folder)
Do have the psd and mockups something to do with your code?
If not I wouldn't recommend to add the files to the solution.
I would use the Windows Explorer AddIn from TFS Power Tools.
With it you have the ability to checkin/add/checkout files without Visual Studio, you only need to map a folder to your source control.
You can choose on the pending changes window whether you want to have all files checked in from your workspace or from your solution.
See How to show pending changes only for the currently opened solution in Visual Studio 2010 (TFS) and not the complete list of all changes? for a screenshot.

Exclude from project, source control issue

I'm using team foundation server 2010 # work and home.
I want to exclude some element from the project build but still have them exist in Team Foundation Server 2010 source control. How do I achieve this?
Exclude From Project will delete the item.
Same problem here, only way to do this is manually edit project file :(
Please vote that this bug is important to fix
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/573582/vs-2010-exclude-from-project-deleting-files-from-source-control
Workaround posted on Connect:
Open the csproj file in notepad and find the files that need to be
excluded and remove or comment the compile element for that file, and
any related designer and resx files.
Editing a project file and removing the references to the files you want to exclude would be the easiest solution.
Another solution would be to remove files from the project via UI, but only checkin changes in the project file and undo the delete operations.
In the future you can add files directly to the TFS folder in Team Explorer.
May I ask: why would you want to do that? As I commonly have a problem of files which are not bound to any project and have to be getted manually.
I work in a TFS environment, and if it were me? I'd just change the name of the file (instead of excluding it from the project), and check that in instead. Since your project is expecting that particular filename...it won't find it. We use this when we're developing prototypes or holding on to antiquated code for documentation purposes. Sorry VS is eating your stuff!
Kind Regards,
-sf
I think these steps should help you do what you are looking for.
To exclude an item from a deployment project:
In Solution Explorer, select the file you want to exclude.
On the Solution Explorer toolbar, select Properties.
In the Properties window, set the Exclude property to True.
And this page explains the actions for project files supported by VS 2010:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/0ebzhwsk.aspx
--- Edit ---
At work I tried 'Exclude From Project' in one of the files of a project we have in VS 2010, which is bound to a TFS 2010 server, and this action did not delete the item from TFS; the Source Control Explorer window shows the red delete mark next to the item, and the 'Pending Change' column says delete, but item is there. Right click the item in the Source Control Explorer window, one of the commands in the context menu that pops-up is 'Check In Pending changes' and another one is 'Shelve Pending changes'. Shelving enables you to set aside the pending changes.
The file is still in the local hard drive. If I do 'Include In Project' the item comes back to normal.

Resources