How to use Visual Studio as your merge tool in Tower

Question

I'd like to use Visual Studio as the default merge tool in Tower. I've looked at the docs and the comparetools.jsons that ship with the installer, but unfortunately vsDiffMerge /? doesn't provide any useful information on what parameters go where.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 23 '18 at 15:22

To configure Visual Studio 2017 as your merge tool in Tower, place vs2017.json in the following directory: %LOCALAPPDATA%\fournova\Tower\Settings\CompareTools\

Set the following contents and adjust the Visual Studio search path when needed:

{
  "DisplayName":           "Visual Studio 2017",
  "MinimumVersion":        "",
  "SupportsDiffChangeset": true,
  "SupportsDirectoryDiff": false,
  "DiffToolArguments":     "\"$LOCAL\" $REMOTE /t",
  "MergeToolArguments":    "\"$REMOTE\" \"$LOCAL\" \"$BASE\" \"$MERGED\" /m",
  "ApplicationRegistryIdentifiers": [
  ],
  "ApplicationPaths": [
      "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\Preview\\Enterprise\\Common7\\IDE\\CommonExtensions\\Microsoft\\TeamFoundation\\Team Explorer\\vsDiffMerge.exe",
      "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\Preview\\Professional\\Common7\\IDE\\CommonExtensions\\Microsoft\\TeamFoundation\\Team Explorer\\vsDiffMerge.exe",
      "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\Preview\\Community\\Common7\\IDE\\CommonExtensions\\Microsoft\\TeamFoundation\\Team Explorer\\vsDiffMerge.exe",  
      "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\Preview\\TeamExplorer\\Common7\\IDE\\CommonExtensions\\Microsoft\\TeamFoundation\\Team Explorer\\vsDiffMerge.exe",  
      "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2017\\Enterprise\\Common7\\IDE\\CommonExtensions\\Microsoft\\TeamFoundation\\Team Explorer\\vsDiffMerge.exe",
      "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2017\\Professional\\Common7\\IDE\\CommonExtensions\\Microsoft\\TeamFoundation\\Team Explorer\\vsDiffMerge.exe",
      "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2017\\Community\\Common7\\IDE\\CommonExtensions\\Microsoft\\TeamFoundation\\Team Explorer\\vsDiffMerge.exe",
      "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2017\\TeamExplorer\\Common7\\IDE\\CommonExtensions\\Microsoft\\TeamFoundation\\Team Explorer\\vsDiffMerge.exe"
  ]
}

Restart Tower and then select Visual Studio in the preferences window:

How to use Visual Studio as your merge tool in Tower

1 Answers1