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If I add a new file to a project under TFS source control, it will check out the project file and the corresponding .vspscc file for that project file.

The project file itself changes (to include the new file), but the .vspscc file doesn't change at all. Why bother checking it out? Is there a way to disable it from being checked out and if there is, should I?

Zoe
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kenwarner
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  • It's a very good question. When adding projects to the Source Control it seems to create **and version** the .vspscc files. If you however try to export and re-add the project to another source control, the source control wizard puts these files to the ignored list. Sadly this question has not been answered with a definite **yes because...** or **no because...** answer. – Vinz Aug 08 '17 at 16:05

3 Answers3

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It gets checked out because under certain conditions it will be modified..and thus they checked it out as a matter of default. I wouldn't worry about it..it's not hurting anything, and if you disable it, it might bite you badly in the future in a bizarre way.

Caladain
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    thanks. just out of curiosity, any idea what those certain conditions are? – kenwarner Jun 25 '10 at 19:20
  • Not a clue. I've just see it checked in with a different size once in a blue moon, so i assume it's being changed occassionally. When i get to work monday, i can see if i can tell what's different – Caladain Jun 25 '10 at 19:22
  • i just looked at the version history on a vspscc file with 9 months of history and there's dozens of checkins with no changes since the first time it was added. – kenwarner Jun 25 '10 at 19:26
  • I could very well be wrong, as i can't verify (since i'm at home and not work), but my mind tells me i've seen it's size change. (could just be hallucinating as well :-S) Regardless, it won't hurt anything to have it checked out each time – Caladain Jun 25 '10 at 19:31
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    Here's an answer: Team Foundation uses these to store lists of files that have been excluded from source control. We leveraged some of the existing SCC integration layer in Visual Studio to integrate Team Foundation, and these files were one of the carryovers. http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/tfsgeneral/thread/9920911d-1a7e-4ada-90cd-b1b910586cf4 – Caladain Jun 25 '10 at 19:42
  • Unfortunately, in my case I have latency between me and the TFS servers and there are about 87 of these in the solution. Each checkout takes 15 seconds or so, during which time I can't do anything productive. So in my case "not worrying about it" is not an option. – Matthew James Briggs Nov 09 '15 at 20:27
  • I found no issues excluding these types of files from TFS. Unless I'm missing something? – Alex M Nov 26 '15 at 09:28
  • The bizarre bite can happen because even MSFT doesnt know what these files are for. I've excluded them for years, and the only problem i have is that nuget tries to check one out before checking if it exists. – StingyJack Sep 16 '18 at 23:06
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According to this post of Ben Ryan:

Team Foundation uses these to store lists of files that have been excluded from source control. We leveraged some of the existing SCC integration layer in Visual Studio to integrate Team Foundation, and these files were one of the carryovers. I'll have to check into what the logic was in breaking out these SCC settings into separate files as opposed to putting them in the solution and project files' SCC sections.

Paulo Santos
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This file is a holdover from past VSS/TFS implementations, like Paulo Santos posted.

On the solution level, I have found no functional use for these files. In 10 years of using TFS, I have never seen that file altered. You can delete these .VSSCC files, as I commonly do for my closed source solutions.

But if you delete the solution-level .vsscc file, you will get a non-destructive error message on the first time open of the solution file...only after a new branch is created. All subsequent solution opening will not show the error message again.

My TFS setup standards have the solution file alone in the root folder, all projects are under sub-folders. Since those .vsscc files double the number of files in my root, I always delete them.

On a project level, I leave those files, as my team never opens project files directly, only solution .SLN files.

For my team, I prefer programmer ease of opening solutions over that one-time error message.

Robert J. Good
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    Unfortunately, it appears that even if you delete the files, Visual Studio (even 2015) will re-generate them. – palswim Jul 05 '16 at 19:24