Read this article in your language IT | EN | DE | ES

The correct way to promote a Branch:

Steps in Order:

1. Check in your changes to your branch.
2. “Forward Integrate” the Parent Trunk’s latest changes down into your branch with a TFS Merge.
3. Resolve FI Merge conflicts and check-in changes to your Branch
4. Re-stabilize, reconfirming features.
5. Check in your changes to your branch.
6. “Reverse Integrate” your Branch into the Parent Trunk using TFS Merge
7. Resolve RI Merge conflicts
8. Check-in Parent Trunk

Verify:

Use TFS Comparison tool to Verify that Branch and Trunk are identical after these steps.

If they are not, use Merge tool from Command Line with /force parameter. (make sure you use the correct switches)