What's the best way to take my TFS source controlled project on the road and then bring it back?

Question

So my desktop is my primary workstation for VS2008 that's supported on the backend by TFS. I'm hitting the road for a week and I'd like to take a project with me. I'd like to checkout the entire project, copy it to my external HD and then work off that. I know that when I try to open it on my laptop that won't be connected to the network, I'll be asked to remove the source control bindings. So do I do that, and then when I come back to the office just copy all the files on top of my checked out version? I just don't wanna mess anything up. :)

Answer 1

1. Checkout the entire project if you can.
2. Don't remove the source bindings
3. Before you check-in make a copy of your local source just to be safe.

Answer 2

You can take your TFS solution offline on your Desktop Machine. Then you copy the working directories onto your laptop (assuming your laptop has VS and everything else set up) it will allow you to continue working.

When you get back, you copy your Laptop solution root folder over your Desktop solution root folder, and then take the solution back online. Depending on the size of your solution, this might take some time, because it will do a file-by-file comparison to see what was changed (it will do this only against the files that you changed on the road, because your solution in an 'offline mode' will still keep track of which files were changed). Then a list will appear in your pending changes. You can check each of those (as you normally would) before checking them in.

Answer 3

You could use SvnBridge and get it out into a svn repository, and then do whatever you want with it because svn handles working offline really well, and then check it back in when you're done.

Answer 4

Since you have VS2008, this should mostly be handled for you. No need to make extraneous copies.

Here's a click-by-click walkthru of the new offline feature: http://teamfoundation.blogspot.com/2007/12/offline-and-back-again-in-vs2008.html

If you want to manually manage the offline state, Ben Ryan has several instructional posts: http://blogs.msdn.com/benryan/archive/2008/07/09/using-tfs-2008-power-tools-to-modify-server-s-offline-state.aspx