How do I access the TFS workspace of an employee that has quit to review/check in some of the changes?

Question

One of my co-workers has resigned and was made to leave the premises before checking in all of his code to TFS. I have access to the physical files. Is there a way for me to access his workspace and check in some of the changes that are still left unchecked in? From tfs I can see which files he has checked out but no way of seeing the exact changes unless very manually.

Answer 1

In TFS 2010, there is a new feature called 'Public Workspaces'. This allows multiple people to share the same workspace folders on a computer, but authenticating to TFS using their own logon.

A TFS administrator can change a workspace to a 'Public Workspace' by running a command like the following:

tf workspace /collection:http://yourserver:8080/tfs/yourCollection WorkspaceName;domain\CurrentWorkspaceOwner /permission:Public

(This command can be run on any computer, it doesn't need to be run on the same computer as the workspace you are trying to change)

If there is only one other user that needs to use the workspace, perhaps a simpler method is to just change the owner of the workspace. This can be done by a TFS administrator with the following command:

tf workspace /collection:http://yourserver:8080/tfs/yourCollection WorkspaceName;domain\CurrentWorkspaceOwner /newowner:domain\NewWorkspaceOwner

Once you have done either of these things, you can logon to that computer as the new owner and use the workspace as if it were your own.

You can read more about this feature in this blog post TFS2010: Public Workspaces.