TFS Get latest version on checkout

As most Team Foundation Server (TFS) users will know by now, upon checkout of a file from source control, the latest version isn’t retrieved. For a lot of users very odd, while this was the cast in Visual Source Safe. This is actually by design. And this time “by design” doesn’t mean it’s a bug (or feature, if you will). Buck Rogers Hodges explains why and I think it’s an excellent reason.

Just read though, on Roy Osherove’s weblog that there’s a new add-in for Visual Studio that’ll check the version of the file you’re checking out and if it’s not the latest version, a popup will appear asking if you want to get the latest version. There are other add-ins that do this, but they don’t ask the question, they just do.

It’s something I’ll never install and use, because I believe TFS works the way it should be on that matter. But it’s good to have the choice.