How to get tf.exe (TFS command line client)?

What's the minimum amount of software I need to install to get the 'tf.exe' program?

You need to install Team Explorer, it's best to install the version of Team Explorer that matches the version of TFS you are using e.g. if you're using TFS 2010 then install Team Explorer 2010.

2012 version http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=30656

2013 version http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40776

2019 version https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/#visual-studio-team-explorer-2019

You also might be interested in the TFS power tools. They add some extra command line features (using tfpt.exe) and also add some extra IDE features.

I'm in a virtual machine, and am trying to keep my VHD as small as possible, so I find Team Explorer is a really heavyweight solution (300+ MB install). As an alternative, I've had some luck copying a minimal set of EXEs/DLLs from a Team Explorer installation to a clean machine (.NET 4.0 is still required, of course).

I've only tried a handful of operations so far, but this set of files (about 8.5 MB) has been enough to get basic source-control functionality via tf.exe:

• TF.exe
• TF.exe.config
• Microsoft.TeamFoundation.dll
• Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.dll
• Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.dll
• Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.Library.dll
• Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client.dll
• Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Common.dll
• Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Controls.dll

(It should go without saying that this is a completely unsupported solution, and it doesn't free you from the normal TFS licensing requirements.)

Depending on the operations you perform, you may find that additional DLLs are required. Fortunately, tf.exe will produce a nice error message telling you exactly which ones are missing.

For Visual Studio 2017 & 2019, it can be found here :

-Replace {YEAR} by the appropriate year ("2017", "2019").

-Replace {EDITION} by the appropriate edition name ("Enterprise", "Professional", or "Community")

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\{YEAR}\{EDITION}\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer\tf.exe

For Visual Studio 2022, it can be found here :

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\{EDITION}\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer\TF.exe

There is a Java TFS client in the Team Explorer Everywhere installation (together with an Eclipse plugin). Look at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30661

For reference: these are the required DLLs for Visual Studio 2017 (as did @ijprest for the VS 2010)

TF.exe
TF.exe.config
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Core.WebApi.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Common.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Controls.dll
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.Client.Interactive.dll
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.Common.dll
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.WebApi.dll

They will be in my base VM image. I'm going to use it to pull the latest deployment scripts from VC to a temporary local workspace folder when installing a new server.

tf workspace /new ... 
tf workfold /map ...
tf get "%WorkSpaceLocalFolder%" /recursive
tf workfold /unmap 
tf workspace /delete

<run deployment scripts from "%WorkSpaceLocalFolder%" >

rmdir "%WorkSpaceLocalFolder%"

(Sorry to post this as an answer, but I don't have enough reputation to comment, which I believe it should have been)

The tf.exe command line is included in the VSTS agent package in folder externals\vstsom.

Visual Studio 2017 Team Explorer

According to https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/bharry/2017/04/05/team-explorer-for-tfs-2017/ you can now download it separately from Visual Studio via this link:

https://www.visualstudio.com/thank-you-downloading-visual-studio/?sku=TeamExplorer&rel=15

You can also try TFS CLI for Node.js which is a cross-platform CLI for Microsoft Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Team Services.

Following on from the earlier answers above but based on a VS 2019 install ;
I needed to run "tf git permission" commands, and copied the following files from:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\TeamExplorer\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer

Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Core.WebApi.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Diff.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.Client.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.Contracts.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.Controls.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.CoreServices.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.Graph.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.HostingProvider.AzureDevOps.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.HostingProvider.GitHub.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.HostingProvider.GitHub.imagemanifest
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.Provider.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.SourceControl.WebApi.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Common.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Common.Integration.dll
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Controls.dll
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.Client.Interactive.dll
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.Common.dll
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.WebApi.dll
TF.exe
TF.exe.config