Sharing project binaries in different team projects in TFS 2010

Question

I am moving the source code from the PureCM installation to the new TFS 2010 setup. I have .net projects for several solutions, and these projects share binary outputs with each other. In the pure CM world, these shared binaries were stored as “shared components.” Is there a “source code sharing” concept in TFS in Team Project? What ideas are best suited to achieve this in TFS?

my current proposed structure in TFS at the moment is as follows:

• http: // TFSServer / Development
  • General (this is a team project)
    • LocalResources-ProcessTasks-Branch
    • LocalResources-Suite-Branch
    • ExternalResources
  • ProcessTasks (this is a team project)
    • source
    • Local resources (forked in shared> localResources-ProcessTasks-branch)
  • Suite (this is a team project)
    • Source Code -LocalResources (Branched to Shared> LocalResources-Suite-branch)

For each team project, the binaries go to a local folder (for example, LocalResources), and then for each such folder that should be shared, I create a branch in the joint command project. All binaries belong to the forked locations of the General project.

Now the problem is that all members of my team must have the Sharing project workspace in one place for this setting to work.

Any ideas how I can improve this setting?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Sharing binary files between multiple solutions, each in a separate team project, is not possible.

There are several ways to solve this problem. One of the possibilities, as you already described, is to have a separate team project containing shared binaries.

Another approach is to have a dedicated project for each solution containing external dependencies. The disadvantage here is that all copies are synchronized: when a new binary version is available, it must be replaced in every project that uses this binary.

For more information, see How do you exchange external dependencies between Visual Studio solutions?