Renaming the containing project folder in VS.net under TFS.

Question

I have a vs.net project, and after some refactoring, have modified the name of the project. How can I easily rename the underlying windows folder name to match this new project name under a TFS controlled project and solution?
Note, I used to be able to do by fiddling with things in the background using SourceSafe ...

Answer 1

You could just rename the project (.Xproj file and project folder) in TFS, delete the local folder structure and all of its contents, then do a get latest for the project. All of this depends the notion of your source repository is completely up to date and compilable.

Answer 2

Just right click on the folder in TFS, and select Rename. Once you commit the rename, TFS will make the changes on disk for you. As Kevin pointed out, you will want to make sure that everything is checked in, because TFS will remove the old folder and everything in it, and pull down the renamed folder with the current version of the files in it.

One final note: You can't rename a folder that you haven't mapped, or that you haven't done a "Get" from. I don't know why, but TFS will disable the Rename option in these cases.

At least that's what happened to me, if I remember correctly.

Answer 3

Here are steps that worked for me in Visual Studio 2008 with TFS:

1. Close solution.
2. Rename project folders in Source Control Explorer (right-click -> rename). This duplicates code into newly named folders.
3. Open the solution, and in Solution Explorer, remove the old folders/projects and add the new, properly named, duplicates, (on old projects, right-click -> remove, then on the solution, right-click->Add->Existing Project...)

OR: After step 2, you can open the solution's .sln file in a text editor, and manually update the project folder names. If you do this, you might need to manually check-out the .sln file to be sure your changes will be checked in (<- important!).