I thought that the first week of the new year would be a good time do some cleaning and decided to remove some old branches from Team Foundation Server Version Control. However deleting one of the branches failed with the following error message:
Another user had one of the files locked inside his (private) workspace which prevented me from deleting this branch. As I couldn’t contact this person, I had to find another solution.
Remove the lock
Removing a lock can be done using the tf undo command:
- Open a Visual Studio command prompt
- Enter the following command
- tf undo /workspace:FRIEND-PC;personname /collection:http://servername/DefaultCollection $/xxxx/ProjectFolder/ProjectName/filepath/filename.css
Here is an example:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise>tf undo /workspace:"Framework en Tooling 169;Bart Wullems" /collection:http://tfs.server.be:8080/tfs/defaultcollection "$/Framework en Tooling/Main/IAM/packages/Antlr.3.5.0.2/lib/Antlr3.Runtime.dll"
The operation completed successfully. Because the workspace Framework en Tooling 169;Bart Wullems is not on this computer, you must perform a separate get operation in that workspace to update it with the changes that have been made on the server.
Delete the workspace
An alternative solution would be to delete the whole workspace using the tf workspace command:
- Open a Visual Studio command prompt
- Enter the following command
- tf workspace /delete FRIEND-PC;personname
Here is an example:
tf workspace /delete "Framework en Tooling 169;Bart Wullems" /collection:http://tfs.server.be:8080/tfs/defaultcollection
A deleted workspace cannot be recovered.
Workspace 'Framework en Tooling 169;Bart Wullems on server 'http://tfs.server.be:8080/tfs/defaultcollection' has 752 pending change(s).
Are you sure you want to delete the workspace? (Yes/No) Y