title: How do I avoid having to merge every file in our repository after a baseless merge?
body: <p>We're having a bit of trouble following a TFS Baseless Merge. Here's a quick summary of the branches we have at the moment.</p>
  
  <pre><code>               Main
                  |
             -----------
             |         |
          BranchA   BranchB
             |         |
          BranchA1  BranchB1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>We performed a baseless merge using "All changes up to a specific version" from <strong>BranchA1</strong> to <strong>BranchB1</strong>. When this was checked in every file in our source tree had a "merge" status.</p>
  
  <p>This makes sense, and is explained in the ALM Rangers branching guide as follows:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>If a baseless merge is performed with “All changes up to a specific version” selected, when checking in a baseless merge every file will have a merge status next to it since a baseless merge creates a branching relationship for every file in the parent folder.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>What we have now is the need to Reverse Integrate <strong>BranchB1</strong> into <strong>BranchB</strong>, but in doing so this means <em>again</em> we have every file with a "merge" status. And (from my testing) when we RI <strong>BranchB</strong> into <strong>Main</strong> we have the problem again. This isn't so much of an issue.</p>
  
  <p>The problem will come following the RI merge of <strong>BranchB</strong> into <strong>Main</strong>, every FI merge from <strong>Main</strong> -> <strong><em>WhatEverBranch</em></strong> will have <strong>all</strong> the files with a "merge" status.</p>
  
  <p>This is a <strong>big</strong> problem because we have some 120+ branches and some ~50,000 files in the repository. </p>
  
  <p>Also, <strong>BranchB</strong> and <strong>BranchB1</strong> will have more work in them and will be Reverse Integrated some more times. It would be a great inconvenience to just not check in the files with the "merge" status and then either a) ignore them on every RI merge thereafter, or b) stop using the branch after one RI merge.</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Is there any way we can make TFS forget about doing the "merge"
  status changes forever? </li>
  <li>Is there someway I can remove the relationship
  (re-parenting to "No Parent" then back to "BranchB" doesn't seen to
  work)?</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I have tried a <code>tf merge source dest /discard</code> but that still has the "merge" statuses.</p>