Visual Studio Online (http://www.visualstudio.com), formally known as TF Service (https://tfspreview.com), allows you to create a copy of TFS in the cloud. Because I’ve been using it and demoing it since summer of 2011, I’ve created quite a few accounts. Now that the service has gone commercial and is out of general preview, I wanted to start cleaning things up. However, the default behavior (there are some cases where you can own more than one account but it’s not normal as of the date I wrote this post) for the platform is that you can only own one account per alias. Thus I’ve created a number of demo Live IDs Microsoft Account that “own” accounts. In most cases, I went and added my main Microsoft Account.
Thus when I log into my profile page I see a nice long list of accounts that I’m a member of. The problem is how do I figure which of my accounts owns it? Also, some of the accounts are owned by other people. How do I contact them if I want my account removed? Jump below for the answer
You’ll note that each account you’re a member of is a hyperlink so jump to the account.
Then click the cog wheel in the upper corner.
You’ll get a new browser tab or window. Click the Settings tab.
On this page, you’ll see the account owner’s e-mail address or display name.
If it’s just their e-mail address, great. But what if it’s a display name and you don’t remember or know the e-mail address that goes with it? Well, click the Control panel tab.
There’s a link on the page the says Manage collection security and group membership. Click it.
Updated method
Once you get to this page you can find the admin’s e-mail alias one of two ways. The easiest is to just select the Project Collection Administrators group and the click the Members link at the right. The account owner will be in this group and you won’t have to do any hovering (great for tablets without mice) like my original method to get the e-mail address.
Original method
On this new page click the Users link under the top two tabs.
Finally, select and then hover over the display name of the user who you found was the account owner and you’ll have their e-mail address.
Enjoy!
