Getting a specific version

Developers and content producers use the Get Specific task to retrieve a specific version from the source control repository to a local workspace. To troubleshoot a problem in a software or web application or to test drive new code, you may wish to work with a previous file or set of files without tampering development in your current workspace. In such cases, you would switch workspaces and retrieve a specified changeset using the Get Specific version task. The retrieved changeset then becomes the base version in that workspace from which you can make changes and commit these as a new changeset. You may also decide to merge selected files back to the main development line.

When you retrieve any previous version of a file or folder from the source control repository the files you request replace the last files checked in to your workspace. Or, if you have never fetched these files before, the Get Specific operation downloads them to your local working folder. Note: When you issue a Get Specific, the Latest status in your Source Control view will display, No, until you issue a new check-in.

To Get a Specific Version, complete the following steps.

Right-click a file or folder in your Source Control view and from the context menu click Get Specific Version...
The Get dialog displays the Name of the folder you wish to retrieve the local path to its containing Folder on your computer.
From the drop-down version menu, select the type of version you wish to retrieve. You may select a Changeset version, Date, Label, and Workspace Version. For an explanation of version types and their associated dialogs, see the User Guide section, Selecting a Version Type from the version drop-down menu.
Once you have selected a version type, check your download options and click Get. The specified versions files are retrieved to your local workspace. If you are retrieving anything but the Latest version, the Latest status in the Source Control view will change to No, indicating you no longer have the latest version in source control in your local workspace.

Download Options

If you currently have files in your local workspace, use the Get dialog download options to specify what you want to do with the current files in your workspace. The download options are defined as follows:

Overwrite writeable files that are not checked out

If your workspace is currently populated but files are not checked out for editing in the TFS workspace, the server files will overwrite the files in the local workspace. Check this option if you are sure you want to replace the workspace version with the version you are retrieving.

If the box is unchecked, files on the server which are different from the workspace version, will not overwrite the files in the local working folder.

Force get of file versions already in the workspace

If your workspace is currently populated with the specified changeset and it detects no differences between the changeset you are requesting and the files in your workspace, the system will not attempt write the files to your workspace. Select this option if you wish to force the system to write the files anyhow.