All tf.exe commands return one of these: public enum ExitCode { Unknown = -1, Success = 0, PartialSuccess = 1, UnrecognizedCommand = 2, Failure = 100, } You should never see -1 . Code 2 is only for the very specific case where you mistype tf someboguscommand <...> . The important...

Let's recap Items one more time. Items are unique . They have an ID that no other item does. Items are versioned . Like all version control systems, TFVC is about making it easy to store successive versions of the same item and retrieve old ones when necessary. Items have names . Yes, plural. At a rudimentary...

Command Line usage In Source Control Explorer, you're always operating on pending space. At the command line, it's less clear. Consider the following setup: you're working in a directory $/project that's mapped to c:\project and contains two files a.cs and b.cs. For the sake of argument, we'll say they...

Last time we learned that the principle objects in the source control system are called Items, and a few of their basic properties. That was awhile ago so let's recap: Items are unique . They have an ID that no other item does. Items are versioned . Like all version control systems, TFVC is about making...

When I upgraded to OL2007, Buck's great little macros stopped working. Today, I finally got the guts to ask the Outlook guys what they broke improved. The answer was simple enough. I'll let the code do the talking: Sub LinkToWorkItem() Set oDoc = ActiveInspector.WordEditor Set oWord = oDoc.Application...

Solution Explorer isn't working the way I expect. How do I fix it? In TFS, the answer is usually quite simple, because TFS uses workspaces to do most of the dirty work. So if you're familiar with our workspace model, a quick behind-the-scenes tour of solution binding should equip you to solve most problems...

Resolving merge conflicts is hard enough already. Which branch is "target," again? Unfortunately there's a bug in v1 that makes it even harder. If you select multiple conflicts in the main Resolve dialog... ...then you get this abomination: Yikes! Allow me to translate. Command line / client API "Resolve...

Personally, I've never had a problem simply ignoring the features I don't need. Nevertheless, this is a frequent request. If you're sick of waiting 10 minutes every time you want a new top-level folder, Paul Hacker has a solution for you: Empty Process Template . It's not completely gutted, but it should...

As promised , we finally have some guidance around structuring team projects. What can you do within a team project? What can you migrate between projects? Which settings are global, which are scoped only to Team Projects, and which can be broken into their own hierarchies? Doug Neumann reveals all ...

In their own words: Project Description This is a service based system with a front-end allowing the dynamic addition of event handlers for Team System. Users can upload their own custom Handlers as part of an assembly which are then loaded and executed on the server. This application runs in conjunction...

It's finally here! Our first real guidance on branching & merging has been posted, on a Codeplex wiki no less. I reviewed several drafts of the paper, but the real credit goes to Mario for driving our (the product group's) side of the process. Congrats to him, the UE team, and the VSTS Rangers on...

I've noticed a lot of customer confusion around SP1. None of the information below is new -- anyone could piece together the same recommendations by dissecting the various READMEs, release notes, blogs, etc. -- but I think there's value in collecting it in one place. Hope this helps. Installer...

A recent request : "I want to be able to add a label to all files that were modified/added/whatever as part of a changeset." Sounds like a job for PowerShell! function label- changeset ( [ string ] $ serverName , [ string ] $ labelName , [ int ] $ changeset = $ (throw 'Usage : label- changeset <server>...

One thing that's missing from PowerShell is the ability to import foreign namespaces into the current context. That leads to a lot of typing at the interactive prompt and bloated hard-to-read lines in your scripts. For example, even if you've loaded the TFS client assemblies, you still have to write...

I love it when participating in the community pays off. Barely a week later, we had a neat little applet posted to CodePlex: Project Description This little plugin will allow you to switch tfs proxy servers or disable the tfs proxy. It's also possible by installing a webservice to enable the add-in to...

Moishe Lettvin has a great blog entry , an inside look at how a Vista feature ate thousands of man-hours on its way to the lowest common denominator. I don't mind the UI myself (and certainly won't justify Joel's histrionics with a link) but it does illustrate several common pitfalls in large-scale software...

Anyone who reads the forums knows Martin Woodward is a great help to the TFS community. As it turns out, he's a pretty good coder too ;-) For those of you living under a rock, his company makes the premiere TFS client for folks on non-Microsoft platforms. Like Eclipse? Use a Mac or *nix box? Thanks to...

As most SourceSafe users have probably discovered by now, TFS does not get the latest version of a file on checkout. I've seen the online debates continue long after we shipped, but as far as I'm concerned Doug Neumann ( by way of Buck ) and Ed Hintz wrote the definitive explanations last year. Meanwhile...

We use version control to store stuff. What stuff? A bunch of items , the most basic elements of TFVC. In everyday parlance, an item is a file or a folder. TFS rarely makes a distinction between files and folders; they are stored as rows in the same table. But implementation details aren't the point...

To summarize the goals laid out in my reintroduction , I want a chance to start my TFVC "story" from the beginning while laying a conceptual groundwork sturdy enough for our most complicated features. What is the beginning? Well, I assume you have an idea what source control does and why it's useful...

On the Microsoft forums , that is...no, I didn't suddenly eclipse Raymond . As you probably haven't noticed, this blog has lain dormant for 18 months. (if blog with no readers falls by the wayside, does it make a sound?) Meanwhile, the last 11 months have seen a wild experiment in direct customer interaction...