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
If TFS is down, you might have trouble going into offline mode. If you close and reopen your solution, a nice little dialog will appear asking you if you want to Go Offline.
Alternatively if you don't want to close/reopen the solution, you can install the TFS Go-Offline plugin, then click:
TEAM -> Go Offline
when I have to work offline I just unplug my ethernet cable and start TFS 2008. It starts me in offline mode. Then plug back in, right-click 'work online' in solution explorer, and TFS will ask you to check in your offline changes.
Here's the solution for VS 2008 with TFS
This makes your complete solution or the selected project(s) in the solution Offline from the TFS.
add a host entry 127.0.0.1 tfs.foo.com
Ben Ryan has the regkeys you seek on his blog:
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.
Team Foundation Server 2008 does support working offline.
This video demonstrates how to use this feature.