I do a lot of work with TFS and Visual Studio so I waited with baited breath to jump in to the final release of VS2012 to try out some of the fun new things available with this version.  This article was originally going to deal with the new Suspend/Resume features, but I decided to focus on a little problem that many of us may have at the first as a kind of public service announcement type post.

So, are you having trouble finding out exactly how to check in with VS2012?  You’re not alone by any means and it’s not intuitive at all if you’ve been working with VS2010 for any length of time…   I found it mostly by accident, and then confirmed that I was doing it correctly by searching the web to find that others had been having the same issue.  First, if you’re looking to the little pop up window that used to come in in VS2010, you’re looking in vain because it doesn’t exist anymore.  Next, you‘re forced to check in from the Team Explorer Window.

Let me explain the issue visually with a few screen prints.  You’ll see from my screen shot below that I have a file checked out (MainWindow.xaml).

You would think that I would be able to check in by selecting the file and either using the Check In icon or selecting the Check In menu option from right clicking on the file.  The short and frustrating answer is well, no…  While it will look like it is processing, nothing actually happens in regards to checking in the file.  Both Check In options result in the exact same screen and no amount of refreshing will change the results.

However, if you look over at the right side in the Pending Changes section of the Team Explorer Window, you can see a Check In button available.  Another screen shot just to show this specifically.

Clicking on this button actually does something!  Well, it actually gives you the prompt you were expecting with either of the other two options.

After clicking the Yes button, the file finally gets checked in and you see your changeset result number.

Voila, finally checked in!

Now, I’m not sure why MS changed something that worked well (especially the ease of multi or partially selecting sets of files) with the VS2010 version, but this is what we have to work with today.  A bit cumbersome at the beginning and I’m sure I’ll get used to it (but I’m hoping for a service pack already…lol!!).

Now, before you think I’m all negative, I still really like the Code Review, Suspend/Resume, etc. changes to VS2012 and TFS and I’ll start covering them with my next post!