Hello All,
Recently I moved my entire team to TFS RTM. Previously we were using VS2005 RTM with the B3R Team Explorer client and server. We are now entirely on RTM.

After the move everything seemed normal, however when any of us attempt to build now the Version Control system checks out and LOCKS the output .dll's from projects referenced from the WebSite project to other projects within the solution.

The effect is that only one person can debug at a time, because the output dll's get locked each time someone does a build.

Has anyone seen this before or know what could be causing this?

FYI: We do not have "exclusive checkout" turned on at the server or team proejct level.

Thanks,
Graham

In reality the DLLs should never have been added to SCC to start with. Unfortunately, there was a bug prior to TFS RTM where we did not exclude the generated DLLs in the WebSite's \bin directory from SCC. Even with the fixes in RTM there were some holes where such files might still be added to SCC. One of these "holes" is fixed by QFE 915110. There is another related fix that may yet go out as a QFE.

The issue with the DLLs being exclusively checked out can be resolved fairly simply. There is a configurable setting for the Team Foundation Server for file types for which merges are allowed and those which are not mergeable. The latter file types always result in an exclusive checkout when pending an edit. You can prevent the DLLs from being checked out exclusively by going to the main menu and selecting Team->Team Foundation Server Settings->Source Control File Types... There you can select the Executable Files line and click the Edit button. On the Edit dialog, check the "Enable file merging and multiple check out" box.

Thanks,
Ben Ryan

Ben,
Are you refering to this hotfix?

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=915110

Yes. I know the title refers to Visual SourceSafe and seems unrelated in a number of ways, but this hotfix resolves an issue with generated DLL/XML/PDB files being added to source control for Team Foundation Version Control as well.

The other issue I mentioned that does not yet have an externally available fix is a scenario where the DLL files have .refresh files in the \bin directory. These may still be incorrectly added to source control.

--Ben