How to unlock a file from someone else in Team Foundation Server

Question

We have a project that is stored within our TFS server and some files were Checked-Out by me from another computer and another user  both of which are not used anymore   Is there a way to force the unlocking of the file  no changes were made to it so it s safe to do so if I can only do it

User · Answer

Team Foundation Sidekicks worked fine for me   The file didn t unlock so I did a undo on pending changes and after that I could delete the file

User · Answer

Team Foundation Sidekicks has a Status sidekick that allows you to query for checked out work items  Once a work item is selected  click the  Undo lock  buttons on the toolbar    Rights  Keep in mind that you will need the appropriate rights  The permissions are called  Undo other users  changes  and  Unlock other users  changes   These permissions can be viewed by    Right-clicking the desired project  folder  or file in Source Control Explorer Select Properties Select the Security tab Select the appropriate user or group in the Users and Groups section at the top View the  Permissions for  user group    section at the bottom     Disclaimer  this answer is an edited repost of Brett Roger s answer to a similar question

User · Answer

Here s what I do in Visual Studio 2012   Note  I have the TFS Power Tools installed so if you don t see the described options you may need to install them  http   visualstudiogallery msdn microsoft com b1ef7eb2-e084-4cb8-9bc7-06c3bad9148f    If you are accessing the Source Control Explorer as a team project administrator  or at least someone with the  Undo other users  changes  access right  you can do the following in Visual Studio 2012 to clear a lock and checkout    From the Source Control Explorer find the folder containing the locked file s    Right-click and select Find then Find by Status     The  Find in Source Control  window appears  Click the Find button  A  Find in Source Control  tab should appear showing the file s  that are checked out Right click the file you want to unlock Select Undo    from the context menu A confirmation dialog appears   Click the Yes button  The file should disappear from the  Find in Source Control  window    The file is now unlocked

User · Answer

Use the unlock command that comes with TFS   Click Start  click All Programs  click Microsoft Visual Studio 2008  click Visual Studio Tools  and then click Visual Studio Command Prompt  Type the following command and replace the arguments with the appropriate parameter information for your needs  tf lock  lock none   MyTeamProject web config  tf lock itemspec  lock  none checkout checkin     workspace workspacename    recursive    login username  password     collection TeamProjectCollectionUrl    From MSDN

User · Answer

Based on stackptr answer I ve created batch file UnlockOther bat   rem from https   stackoverflow com questions 3451637 how-to-unlock-a-file-from-someone-else-in-team-foundation-server  rem tf undo  file path   workspace  workspace   username  call  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 10 0 VC vcvarsall bat  x86  echo on tf undo   MyTfsProject path fileName ext  workspace CollegeMachine CollegueName  login MyLogin   pause

User · Answer

I was able to undo another user s checkout with the following command   tf undo  file path   workspace  workspace   username    You ll need to wrap that semicolon in double-quotes if you re running the command from PowerShell   We re running TFS 2010  and VS 2010    Disclaimer   I got this from the FCI-H blog at http   fci-h blogspot com 2011 01 how-to-force-undo-checkout-tfs html

User · Answer

In my case  I tried unlocking the file with tf lock but was told I couldn t because the stale workspace on an old computer that no longer existed was a local workspace  I then tried deleting the workspace with tf workspace  delete  but deleting the workspace did not remove the lock  and then I couldn t try to unlock it again because I just got an error saying the workspace no longer existed    I ended up tf destroying the file and checking it in again  which was pretty silly and had the undesirable effect of removing  it from previous changesets  but at least got us working again  It wasn t that big a deal in this case since the file had never been changed since being checked in

User · Answer

You can use the Status Sidekick of TFS Sidekicks tool and unlock the files which are checked out by other users  To do this you should be a part of Administrator group of that particular Team Project  or  your group should have the permissions to undo and unlock the other user changes which by default Administrator group has   You can get the tool here  http   www attrice info cm tfs

User · Answer

You need to be project admin or to have tfs account  user name password  of the user who had locked the file  in Visual Studio 2019   Menu  gt  View  gt  Terminal  ctrl    Wait until developer powershell or command prompt loads to the cursor like this  Drive  your solution path gt  you must undo changes to unlock the file  tf vc undo  workspace  quot workspacename worksapceowner quot   quot   path  file extension     quot    recursive    login  quot user name password quot   example - tf vc undo  workspace  quot DESKTOP-F6BN2GHTKQ8 Johne123 quot   quot   mywebsite mywebsite appsettings json quot

User · Answer

I solved this with the TFS powertools  dec 2011 - for VS 2010 TFS 2010   http   visualstudiogallery msdn microsoft com c255a1e4-04ba-4f68-8f4e-cd473d6b971f  Find in Source Control   Status    allows you to find all files checked out to a specific person  right click and UNDO    can remove each checkout

User · Answer

2019 answer  as most of the above is depracated   tf undo  workspace  hostname username     path     s https   yourhostname tfs in an elevated command prompt  from a path such as  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 14 0 Common7 IDE gt

User · Answer

If you login into the source control with the admin account  you will be able to force undo checkout  or check in with any file you provide

[tfs] How to unlock a file from someone else in Team Foundation Server

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