Use Team Foundation Version Control

You can use Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) to scale from small to large projects, and by using server workspaces, you can scale up to very large codebases with millions of files per branch and large binary files. TFVC is a centralized version control system that lets you apply granular permissions and restrict access down to a file level. Because your team checks in all their work into your Team Foundation server, you can easily audit changes and identify which user checked in a changeset. By using compare and annotate you can identify the exact changes that they made.

What do you want to do?

  • Set up your dev machine and get started
    Spend a few minutes to set up your dev machine to take advantage of all the benefits of a version-controlled codebase.

  • Develop your app in a version-controlled codebase
    You don’t have to think about version control in most situations. The system supports you when you need to manage and understand your changes.

  • Suspend your work
    Sometimes you need to set aside some or all of the work you are doing. Your version control system can take away some of the pain and reduce the time wasted by interruptions.

  • Contribute your work to the team
    Check in your changes so your team can build upon, test, and release the value you’ve created.

  • Isolate risk
    Use branches and locks to isolate risk introduced by work done by different teams.

  • View and manage past versions
    One advantage of a version control system is that you can look back in time to get detailed information about what changes have been made to your files.

  • Compare folders and files
    You can compare server folders and local folders to each other, and view the differences between the contents of each folder.

  • Resolve Team Foundation Version Control conflicts
    A big advantage of using version control is that several people can work concurrently on a file. One drawback is that sometimes you must resolve conflicts. Although it can be frustrating to encounter conflicts, the system provides information and tools to help you understand and resolve conflicts.

  • Work with version control locks
    When you need to prevent a file or folder from being checked out and altered, you can lock it.

We are not currently republishing the following sections. However, you can read the Visual Studio 2010 version of this guidance.

Managing Team Foundation Version Control