Question

I know there is a way to set permissions for Branches so specific people can’t read/check-out/check-in files.

But, is there a way to completely hide those folders/branches so these people can’t even see them?

Btw, we’re using TFS2010.

Answer 1

Let’s say that I have $/Proj/Branch1, and I deny read permission for $/Proj/Branch1 to user A. This would make $/Proj/Branch1 and everything underneath it invisible to user A. This is because by default items don’t have any permissions on them, and just inherit from their parents.

If this is your scenario then there is no more work to do other than denying Read permission to the user in question.

The exception to the rule is when there is some child item of $/Proj/Branch1 to which user A has an allow. Let’s call this item $/Proj/Branch1/Child/Several/Folders/Down.txt. Because user A is allowed to read this item, he or she has to be able to see all the parent folders, all the way up to $/. In this scenario the parent folders are visible, but not their contents (other than that one file Down.txt).

So if you want the path to truly disappear for a user, they have to lack read permission on the item in question and all children of that item. As I said, in the typical case, all you have to do is set a Deny for Read permission on the root item and it will propagate all the way down.

Thanks