Checking in modified files that were not checked out

Our project has recently moved to TFS from CVS and we are all having a bit of trouble adapting to TFS's editing/locking paradigm.

Under CVS, you could change any file in any directory of the source tree and all changes would show up as committable in the CVS frontend (WinCVS in our case). Under TFS, all files you haven't explictly "checked out for edit" are flagged as read-only, but you can clear that flag and edit them manually; however, TFS then seems una开发者_如何学编程ble to determine that the file is changed and hence doesn't allow you to check it in.

This causes a problem when it comes time to commit, because you can't necessarily remember all the file(s) you changed, and TFS doesn't seem to remember either. It's possible to use the "Compare" view to force TFS actually diff your local files against what's in the vault, but irritatingly this view doesn't allow you to check in - only "Check out for edit" the files that are different, which then have to be checked in in a separate operation. This is a big PITA.

Hence my question: is there a way to force TFS to see all changed files as committable a la CVS? (I understand that this is not necessarily desirable, and that TFS's enforcement of editing/locking is best practice, but right now it just isn't working for us.)

TFS is a very different paradigm from CVS. It works best in a connected mode. Assuming that you are in an environment where you are connected to the TFS server, have your developers set their options to automatically check out files when editing.

Additionally, the TFS Power Tools that @ho1 mentioned can also be used to add a set of Windows Explorer context menu commands to perform SCM actions on files (e.g. check out), which gives you another option.

For long-term sanity, you are going to want to get the developers to change their CVS ways. Not doing that is like saying "I have a bunch of VB.NET developers working in C#, and they don't like the semicolon. Is there any way to have something automatically put in the semicolon after they write their code?"

I think you want to look at the TFPT online tool as described on the Power Toys page here.

Quote from that page: The TFPT online tool makes it easier to work without a server connection for a period of time by providing functionality that informs the server about changes made in the local workspace.

Here's the 2010 version of the tool.