Remove work items permanently
You can permanently remove one or more work items from the Team Foundation database for a team project collection by using the witadmin destroywi command. Work items whose state is set to Closed remain in the database and can be reactivated. Permanently removed work items are removed from the database and cannot be restored nor reactivated.
Each work item represents an object that is stored in the Team Foundation database and that is assigned a unique identifier, which is referred to as a work item ID. Work item IDs are unique within a project collection.
To run the witadmin command-line tool, open a Command Prompt window where either Visual Studio or Team Explorer is installed and enter:
cd %programfiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE
On a 32-bit edition of Windows, replace %programfiles(x86)% with %programfiles%.
Requirements
- You must be a member of the Team Foundation Administrators security group or the Project Administrators security group for the team project collection. See Permission reference for Team Foundation Server.
Note
Even if you log on with administrative permissions, you must open an elevated Command Prompt window to perform this function on a server that is running Windows Server 2008. To open an elevated Command Prompt window, choose Start, open the shortcut menu for Command Prompt, and choose Run as Administrator. For more information, see the Microsoft Web site.
witadmin destroywi /collection:CollectionURL /id:id [/noprompt]
Parameters
Parameter |
Description |
|---|---|
/collection:CollectionURL |
Specifies the URI of the team project collection. The format for the URI is the following: http://ServerName:Port/VirtualDirectoryName/CollectionName If no virtual directory is used, then the format for the URI is the following: http://ServerName:Port/CollectionName. |
/id:id |
The ID of a work item to destroy. To specify multiple work items, separate IDs using only commas, without whitespace. |
/noprompt |
Disables the prompt for confirmation. |
/? or help |
Displays help about the command in the Command Prompt window. |
Examples
Permanently Remove Work Items From the Database
The following example deletes the work item 2003 from the database for Collection1 on the AdventureWorksServer server:
witadmin destroywi /collection:http://AdventureWorksServer:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection /id:2003
The following example deletes the work items with IDs, 12, 15, and 23 from the database for Collection1 on the AdventureWorksServer server:
witadmin destroywi /collection:http://AdventureWorksServer:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection /id:"12,15,23"