How to solve Microsoft TFS (Team Foundation Server) update problem

Question

How to solve Microsoft TFS (Team Foundation Server) update problem and when you want to avoid TFS overriding option that requires much time.

Problem: You want to update a location in TFS named $abc\code. You know that there is definitely an update in files in that location but for some TFS system limitation its not updating the proper file and showing that everything is updated. But in reality some files are not latest. This sometimes happens when we go back to an old snapshot in a virtual machine like Oracle VM virtual box. It may also happen is some other scenarios.

NB You might also face similar problem in "Azure DevOps Server".

Answer 1

A hard solution:

Update the $abc\code folder using TFS override option. In this case If update takes 2 days for example you have to keep you computer active for 2 days and cannot stop the process in the middle of it. Otherwise you have to do the full process again which will require another 2 days for example. Note that if the contents at $abc\code are not so large then this approach is the easiest.

An easy solution:

1. There is a TFS Workspace in the Visual Studio user interface shown as a drop-down. Delete the current workspace and create a new workspace with a different name such as Name_Year_Month_Day (for example "Workspace20200514").
2. When you create the new workspace set the TFS location exactly in the same directory as the previous workspace. If TFS asks you to update all then click "No" to cancel the immediate update.
3. Now take latest ("get latest") for $abc\code location.
4. In this case you can cancel the update anytime and shut down you computer and later you can take latest again. Taking latest second or third (or any number of) time will take only the remaining files those are not latest. It will not take the already updated files again. So, it will save time.
5. So, you can split you update into parts and your task becomes easy.