how to remove TFS workspace mapping for another user

I am using Visual Studio 2010. Some months back I was using some 'ABC' TFS user to connect to TFS and mapped some folders on my local drive. Now my previous user 'ABC' is gone and I am allotted a new tfs user 'XYZ' to connect to TFS. So naturally I tried mapping some remote folder to my existing local folder and I got the following error.

"The working folder 'Some_Local_Path' is already in use by the workspace WORKSPACE_NAME:USER_NAME on computer 'MACHINE_NAME'"

I have tried removing the cache folder contents but the same error (C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\3.0\Cache). I have also tried running the commonly found TFS command (tf workspaces /remove:*) to delete the caches for all worksapaces but still the same error. When I try to edit my workspace, it shows source control and local folders for my current user 'XYZ' but what I want is to remove the folder bindings for my previous user 'ABC'. How can I achieve that?

You need to get your TFS administrator to delete the workspace if you have no access to the account.

You may be able to do it by calling "tf workspace" with the explicit user specified, but you need "manage other users workspace" permission. TF Sidekicks uses the same commands so would require the same permission. It is a TFS admin productivity tool.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/y901w7se(v=vs.100).aspx

You can use:

tf workspace /delete "WORKSPACENAME;PREVIOUSUSERACCOUNT"

If you have administrative rights to the collection you can use the TF command located in the Visual Studio\Common7\IDE directory to do this without having to install another tool.

First list the workspaces associated with the user:

TF workspaces /collection:"http://tfsserver:8080/tfs/collection_name" /owner:owner_id

This will return the list of workspaces owned by the user and computer they are associated with

To delete a named workspace:

TF workspace /delete workspacename;owner_id /collection:"http://tfsserver:8080/tfs/collection_name"

I had a similar issue and could not install sidekick because I'm running VS 2k17.

I was unable to delete the workspace because it kept telling me it could not find the workspace.

 tf workspaces /computer:* /owner:* 

This would list all of my workspaces and the owners. So I would try

 tf workspace /delete myWorkSpaceName;Bob Smith
 

 TF14061:  The workspace myWorkSpaceName;Bob Smith does not exist.

That is the exact workspace and owner name I was getting in the original workspace listing above.

The solution was to ask for xml format

tf workspaces /computer:* /owner:* /format:xml > c:\temp\workspaces.xml

(Note: Output to file is optional, but recommended)

This gives workspace owner aliases and one of them was a long name with a guid and the account email. This finally worked:

tf workspace /delete myWorkSpaceName;aabe3ec12-1254-4956-b1ee-3fb26506931e\[email protected]

It asked for a confirmation and finally deleted my orphaned workspace.

First of all you need to install TFS Sidekick (you can download it from http://www.attrice.info/cm/tfs/) In installation phase choose Integrated with IDE mode

Then a new menu will be added to Visual Studio as below

> Menus -> Tools -> TeamFoundation Sidekick

Then open workspace sidekick Search for the 'ABC' user and then you can delete his workspace

1. Open Source Control Explorer(View->Other Windows->Source Control Explorer)
2. On toolbar pane there will be Workspace combo. Choose from that combo Workspacess..
3. Edit
4. Remove

1.First we will check the list of workspaces from VS 2015 Developer command prompt,

Ex - tf workspaces /owner:*

2.Now we will get the xml format from VS 2017 Developer command prompt which will have ‘owner id’ for the particular workspace,

Example 1 - tf.exe workspaces /owner:* /computer:ComputerName /collection:https://YOUR-TFS-URL.visualstudio.com /format:xml

3.We can now delete the workspace for the particular user,

Example 1- Tf workspace /delete ComputerName;[email protected] /server:"https://URL.visualstudio.com"

OR

Example 2 - Tf workspace /delete ComputerName;1e178c77-bb8b-6f05-bf99 /server:https://URL.visualstudio.com

(Where 1e178c77-bb8b-6f05-bf99 is ID of the workspace which you get from Step 2 XML format)

4.Again we will check the list of workspaces from VS 2015 Developer command prompt,

Ex - tf workspaces /owner:*

Steps to delete workspaces from the TFS server:

1. Open Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt.

2. Goto Program Files (x86) folder, depending on the installed visual studio select "Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0" folder. Here this I have selected it because I am having Visual Studio 2013 installed on my machine. Add this path in the command prompt. Add like "cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE"

   Note: If you have an access of the TFS server from the network then you can try it from any machine where Visual Studio has been installed or from the same TFS machine server if it has Visual Studio there.

3. Check a list of workspaces under specific collection. Type below command to get the workspaces under one collection.

   cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\tf workspaces /server:http://{TFSServername}:8080/tfs/{CollectionName} /owner:*

• In the above command replace {TFSServername} this with your TFS servername or the Server IP.
• In the above command replace {CollectionName} this with actual TFS Collection Name.

4. How to remove workspaces under specific collection. Check below command for the same.

• tf workspace /server:http://{TFSServername}:8080/tfs//{CollectionName} /delete “{workspacename};{owner}”

• Replace {workspacename} this with "Workspacename” which is there in the list of workspaces.

• Replace {CollectionName} this with TFS Collection Name.

  E.g. tf workspace /server:http://{TFSServername}:8080/tfs//{CollectionName} /delete {Enter Exact Workspacename};{Enter ExtactOwnerName}

I had the same issue that after deleting the workspace using tf delete command, I was getting the error that the workspace was already mapped! Then I found out tf delete workspace command leaves the job incomplete barbecues you have to also delete it from the cache manually as was suggested here:

https://community.dynamics.com/365/financeandoperations/b/dynamicsaxinsightbyanas/posts/d365fo-the-path-is-already-mapped-in-workspace

I end up in same issue after the person who setup Jenkins left our company. He had setup workspace and TFS checkout was using alternate authentication. As his credentials are removed from msdn, TFS checkout started choking.

Following LarryG's solution helped to remove the workspace. Only difference is, I just used the windows live ID of the person, who left the company.

tf workspace /delete myWorkSpaceName;windowsliveID