How to work offline with TFS
See this reference for information on how to bind/unbind your solution or project from source control. NOTE: this doesn't apply if you are using GIT and may not apply to versions later than VS2008.
Quoting from the reference:
To disconnect a solution or project from source control
In Visual Studio, open Solution Explorer and select the item(s) to disconnect.
On the File menu, click Source Control, then Change Source Control.
In the Change Source Control dialog box, click Disconnect.
Click OK.
The 'Go Offline' extension adds a button to the Source Control menu.
https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/6e54271c-2c4e-4911-a1b4-a65a588ae138
plundberg: The "disconnect" button is only available for the TFS provider starting in VS 2008. Even then, I'm not sure if it's officially supported. The recommended way to use the Go Offline feature is to [re]open the solution.
Martin Pritchard: if you get stuck mid-operation, you can force VS to timeout by pulling the network plug (literally) or running ipconfig /release.
Once you're marked offline, here's a step by step guide to working in that mode: http://teamfoundation.blogspot.com/2007/12/offline-and-back-again-in-vs2008.html
More detailed info on tweaking the behind-the-scenes behavior: http://blogs.msdn.com/benryan/archive/2007/12/12/when-and-how-does-my-solution-go-offline.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/benryan/archive/2007/12/12/how-to-make-tfs-offline-strictly-solution-based.aspx
There are couple of little visual studio extensions for this purpose:
- For VS2010 & TFS 2010, try this
- For VS2012 & TFS 2010, use this
In case of TFS 2012, looks like there is no need for 'Go offline' extensions. I read something about a new feature called local workspace for the similar purpose.
Alternatively I had good success with Git-TF. All the goodness of git and when you are ready, you can push it to TFS.
Depending on which tool windows you have open, VS may or may not try to hit the team server automatically when it starts up.
For best results try this:
- Close all instances of visual studio
- Open an empty visual studio (no project/solution)
- See which windows are opened by default, if source control explorer or team explorer or any other windows that use team are opened (and activated) by default, close them or switch them to a background tab.
- Close visual studio
You should notice now that you can start visual studio without it trying to hit the TFS server.
I know its just an aside to your problem, but I hope you find this helpful!