Team Foundation Server (TFS) File Difference viewer - customize with other tool

Question

I am using Team Foundation Server (TFS) for Visual Studio 2005.

Whenever i wish to compare two file\'s versions TFS displays a window with the differences.

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Answer 1

There is no ability to change the orientation of the built-in diff/merge utility. There are a lot of third-party tools (some free, some not) to choose from. Check out this post from James Manning where he tracks the correct command/argument values to use when configuring various tools for use by Team Foundation's compare and (content) merge operations.

Answer 2

This appears to be a more thorough description of how to use Winmerge in TFS- http://www.neovolve.com/post/2007/06/19/using-winmerge-with-tfs.aspx

Answer 3

I have Visual Studio 2012 and I get to choose between side - by - side options and inline mode. With inline mode, the before and after appear one below the other so that I have the full window for editing.

Related post on StackOverflow

Answer 4

I've found the built in differencing tool in TFS woefully lacking so I set up WinMerge (http://www.winmerge.org/) in my environment in Tools -> Options -> Source COntrol -> Visual Studio Team Foundation.

A nice blog post exists below:

http://www.vitalygorn.com/blog/post/2007/12/Better-DiffMerge-tool-for-TFS.aspx

Answer 5

To use WinMerge (on SourceForge as well), you have to navigate to Tools > Options > Source Control > Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (Visual Studio 2015; other versions may have this option in slightly different places). On that Option page, select Configure User Tools... and in that dialog, select Add... to add the information for your diff tool.

In the "Configure Tool" dialog, I have set the following information:

• Extension: .*
• Operation: Compare (or Merge if you want)
• Command: Path to WinMergeU.exe
• Arguments: /x /e /u /wl /wr /dl %6 /dr %7 %1 %2