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Questions tagged [tfvc]

Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) is the centralized version control system option in Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and Team Foundation Server (TFS).

Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) is a centralized version control system offered by Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and Team Foundation Server (TFS). VSTS and TFS both support hosting either Git repositories or TFVC repositories, so users can select a centralized or a distributed version control system (or both).

TFVC is differs significantly from a distributed version control system, like Git. Instead, it is conceptually similar to other centralized version control systems like Perforce or Subversion with added enterprise requirements. It is optimized and intended for users who require extremely large code bases and who require fine-grained security and auditing of version control operations.

Team Foundation Version Control supports two paradigms:

  • "Server Workspaces": files are read-only and cannot be modified without explicitly being "checked out" from the version control server. (Plug-ins to Visual Studio and Eclipse will perform the check-out from the server automatically.) This is best suited to exceptionally large (up to tens of gigabyte) code bases, since changes must be reported explicitly, therefore it avoids scanning the local repository looking for changes.

  • "Local Workspaces": files can be modified easily, and there is no need to contact the server. Instead, the local workspace will be scanned looking for changes. Filesystem watchers are available on Windows and within the Eclipse IDE to help support very large (up to a gigabyte) repositories.

Team Foundation Version Control supports "working folder mappings", where a client can select a subset of the version control repository that exists on the server and downloading it to the client computer. This allows users to minimize the scope of the remote repository that they need on their workstation.

TFVC is often, incorrectly, referred to as "TFS". TFS (Team Foundation Server), is the name of Microsoft's on-premises Application Lifecycle Management server. TFVC is a version control offering within TFS and VSTS (along with Git), but it is not synonymous with TFS.

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Git vs Team Foundation Server

I introduced Git to my dev team, and everyone hates it except me. They want to replace it with Team Foundation Server. I feel like this is a huge step backwards, although I am not very familiar with TFS. Can someone with experience compare branching…
Jacko
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TFS: How can you Undo Checkout of Unmodified files in a batch file

We use a batch file to generate code, and it automatically checks out the generated files from Team Foundation Server (TFS) so that it can regenerate them. The majority of these files are not modified, but the generator does not know this ahead of…
Robert Wagner
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How do I find and view a TFS changeset by comment text?

With TFS I need to find a changeset by comment, and/or by developer. Maybe I'm just blind today, but I don't see a simple way in the Source Control Explorer to do this task?
Ralph Shillington
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How to have TFS 2010 detect changes done to files outside of Visual Studio?

I'm using Team Foundation Server 2010 with Visual Studio 2010. Whenever I modify a file outside of Visual Studio, TFS doesn't seem to detect the change done to the file, and thus doesn't offer me the option to check-in the file after it has been…
user356178
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What are the big differences between TFVC (TFS Version Control) and Git for source control when using Visual Studio 2013?

There are tons of questions and answers about Git versus TFVC Source Control, but no current answers cover the integration of Git into Team Foundation Server/Service that I can find. I'm starting green pasture development using a wide variety of…
Greg Grater
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Get current changeset id on workspace for TFS

How do I figure out what changeset I currently have in my local workspace? Sure, I can pick one file and view its history. However, if that file was not recently updated, its changeset is probably older than the more recently updated files in the…
boyan
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What's the difference between git-tf and git-tfs?

I've recently been getting really fed up with TFS. I've heard that there is a light at the end of the tunnel though. Apparently I can use either git-tf or git-tfs and treat my code as if it was managed by git, but be able to push/pull to/from a…
Earlz
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TFS creates a $tf folder with gigabytes of .gz files. Can I safely delete it?

I am using visual studio 2012 with Microsoft TFS 2012. On the workspace that is created on my c: drive, a hidden folder $tf is created. I suspect TFS from creating this folder. It's lurking diskspace as the current size is several gigabytes now and…
Nico Lubbers
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How to move a project from Git to TFS in Visual Studio

I have a project that I've been working on for some time now and I just cannot make Git work for me. I've spent a day trying to recover lost code and I am done with Git. Can anyone tell me how to move an existing project into TFVC? I have a Visual…
user2900166
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Is there a way to compare two branches for differences/file versions in VS2010?

Does anyone know if there is a way to check if code from production hotfix branch is not newer than mainstream branch via diff tool of some sort? (hotfix1 vs thrunk) \src \thrunk \releases \hotfix1 I'm using vs2010 with TFS, but the…
Coder
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Shelving Pending Changes in TFS

Right now I have some major code changes that won't be done in time for an upcoming release and need to be shelved. Is there a good way to get these changes out of my workspace but be able to return to them later? Maybe I am missing something, but…
Aaron
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Visual Studio 2017 Cannot Move Shelveset to Another Branch

Since they have supposedly integrated most of the Power Tools functionality into VS2017, the new command "tf unshelve" does not work the same as the old command "tfpt unshelve" to move shelvesets to another branch, as you cannot add a source and a…
Rani Radcliff
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How do I permanently exclude the bin and obj folders from TFS 2012 checkin?

I mucked around with TFS settings and I accidentally included the bin and obj folders for TFS 2012 checkin, and even checked them in already. I don't want this because these files change often and aren't meant for inclusion. I've checked What…
Nzall
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What exactly is TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control)

This link talks about TFVC. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181237.aspx What exactly is it? I know that TFS (Team Foundation Server) is a product that can be downloaded and installed, but recently I have seen mention of "Team Foundation…
joedotnot
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Visual Studio 2015 TFS .tfignore file

I want to ignore a folder (and its content) in a visual studio 2015 solution from beeing checked-in into tfs. I created a file called '.tfignore' in the root of the project that is containing the folder I want to exclude. The content of the file…
evaenrique
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