I want to move my project from TFVC on TFS to Git on VSTS, without command-line tools. Can I do it?

Many often do not realise how easy is to consume technology to make it accomplish a certain scenario. This happened just last week to me.

For example: you have a project on a Team Foundation Server, which uses TFVC. TFS is only available via the corporate LAN, while you want to move it to the new company’s VSTS account and you also want to move to Git. Throwing an extra spanner in the works, you want something easy to use which does not require any kind of command-line use.

Does it sound too complicated? It is actually a matter of a couple of clicks.

The first step is to use the Import Repository feature on your local TFS – what you will do is to convert a branch from TFVC ($/MyProject/main for example) to a new Git repository:

You can retain as much as 180 days of history, which is more than enough IMHO. If you need more, you can keep the old system around and look it out there. Why? Because of how TFVC and Git differ – it would not really make sense, and you are just adding stuff to a repository that should be as nimble as possible. Also, you are limited to 1GB per imported branch.

Once you are happy with it you can add your VSTS target repository as a remote, and push it there. Job done.