Question

Is there a way to set “work offline” in TFS without having to try opening a solution, waiting for it to time out, and then having Visual Studio work out that it has failed?

It seems a touch ridiculous that I can’t just tick a box to tell it myself, seeing as I’m probably the one most qualified to know when I’m not in the office!

Answer 1

Ben Ryan has the regkeys you seek on his blog:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/benryan/archive/2007/12/12/when-and-how-does-my-solution-go-offline.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/benryan/archive/2007/12/12/how-to-make-tfs-offline-strictly-solution-based.aspx

Most of these controls are also built into the latest Power Tools:

C:\Users\Richard> tfpt tweakui /?
tfpt tweakui - Enhance how client connects to Team Foundation Server

Allows configuration of how and when the client connects to a 
Team Foundation Server.  This includes client certificates, auto
reconnect, offline, compression, maximum connections, timeouts, 
and bypassing the proxy.