Important
We recommend that you back up the databases in the Team Foundation Server data tier server.

Team Foundation Server uses SIDs for identifying users and associating them to permissions. Team Foundation source control stores the users’ information in the identity table where the user's SID is registered as the authenticationKey.

The TFSAdminUtil Sid command is used by an administrator to update user accounts to respond to renaming users, or reinstalling Team Foundation onto a different computer. For example, if the administrator wants to move the Team Foundation installation to a new computer, the administrator must follow these steps:

1. Restore the data backups and create the application tier.

2. Use the TFSAdminUtil Sid command to list all of the accounts.

3. Use the list generated in step two (2) to create all the user accounts.

4. Run TFSAdminUtil Sid /Change source target command to update the SIDs of the user accounts in the Team Foundation Server.

   This results in the user accounts retaining all of their previous permissions and ownerships.

   Note
   After you use the Sid command, you can expect unpredictable behavior until Team Foundation Server synchronizes with Active Directory. It is recommended that the migrated users do not use the system for at least an hour after the Sid command has been run.

The following command instructs the Sid command of the TFSAdminUtil utility to list all registered security identifiers.

>TFSAdminUtil.exe Sid

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