What's the big deal about Workspaces in TFS. I just want to monitor some folder for changesets and checkins and copy them to some other tfs folder, and I don't understand why workspaces are so important. There is not one accepted solution in stackoverflow that does not mention workspaces. Why do I need workspaces to use tf commands, such as tf checkin, tf add, etc. It's pretty frustrating.. thanks..
Please understand the workspace first. TFS stores your code, but when you begin to make changes to the code, those changes have to happen on your local machine. The code files need to be checked out from TFS to a local area on your computer. A "workspace" in TFS defines where the code resides locally.
In essence, a workspace is a folder, or multiple folders, mapped to areas in TFS. When code is checked out of TFS, the code is stored locally based off your workspace mappings. When you make changes to your code files, you are making those changes locally, to the files contained in your workspace.
One of the main reasons for workspaces is isolation. It provides a private sandbox where code changes can be made without having to worry if the changes will affect other team members. The changes remain in the local workspace until are checked into TFS.
For tf commands, it's designed based on the workspace for version control, please refer to below articles to understand more about the workspace and tf commands: