Can I unshelve to a different branch in tfs 2008?

The Visual Studio Power Tools should let you do this.

C:\src\2\Merlin\Main>tfpt unshelve /?
tfpt unshelve - Unshelve into workspace with pending changes

Allows a shelveset to be unshelved into a workspace with pending changes.
Merges content between local and shelved changes. Allows migration of shelved
changes from one branch into another by rewriting server paths.

Usage: tfpt unshelve [shelvesetname[;username]] [/nobackup]
                     [/migrate /source:serverpath /target:serverpath]

 shelvesetname          The name of the shelveset to unshelve
 /nobackup              Skip the creation of a backup shelveset
 /migrate               Rewrite the server paths of the shelved items
                        (for example to unshelve into another branch)
 /source:serverpath     Source location for path rewrite (supply with /migrate)
 /target:serverpath     Target location for path rewrite (supply with /migrate)
 /nobackup              Skip the creation of a backup shelveset

For example to merge a shelve set called "Shelve Set Name" created on Branch1 to Branch2 use this:

>tfpt unshelve "Shelve Set Name";domain\userName /migrate /source:"$/Project/Branch1/" /target:"$/Project/Branch2/"

The shelf information includes the specific path it goes to. Unfortunately I don't know of any automatic way to unshelve to any location other than the one it was shelved to. The times I've wanted to do this I had to check out the equivalent files in the new branch, unshelve from the old branch, then manually copy the files over.

EDIT: Well, I guess I was doing it the hard way. I'll have to try out Curt's solution. :)

I spent good amount of time to get this done and I had few issues to overcome. It is possible but here few issues and few rules to follow to avois these issues

Error:

unable to determine the workspace

This particular issue was solved by running the command from source branch root folder. This is contrary to some answers on SO where they say to use "target" branch - no, use "source":

cd [your !!source!! branch root]
tfpt unshelve /migrate /source:"$/MyCollection/Development/Maint1.1" /target:"$/MyCollection/Development/Maint1.2" "myShelveset;UserName"

Second issue appeared after this. Seem that it couldn't connect to TFS server. What I realized, I have multiple VS installed and connected to different TFS servers. I was using VS12 and I had workspace and server connection. But I didn't realize that same connection needs to be replicated in VS13 for TFPT2013 to work. It connects to same server and workspace.

I also tried doing it using TFPT2015 but I installed it and it didn't install TFPT.exe hence it was useless. So I tried from TFPT2013 to TFS2015 and it worked for this particular command. I wonder, why not, if VS12/13 works fine against TFS2015?

To summarize

• Use CMD or DevCMD - doesn't matter
• run command from source branch root folder
• verify Team Explorer Server connection for specific VS
• TF Power Tools 2013 work against TFS v15, at least migrate option works

The following steps can be used for small size shelvesets (~20 files or less).

1. On the shelveset and target branches, start by having all pending updates checked in or rolled back.
2. On the shelveset branch, unshelve the files from the applicable shelveset.
3. On the target branch, checkout any of the existing files that were in the unshelved shelveset.
4. Compare the unshelved files on the shelveset branch with those on the target branch to identify those files that require merge updates (if any).
5. If needed, manually make merge updates to the applicable files of the prior step and save these files in the target branch workspace.
6. Copy the other shelveset files from the shelveset branch workspace to the target branch workspace.
7. Compare the new updated files in the target branch workspace with the checked in files. Make any corrections as needed.
8. Check in the new updated files on the target branch.
9. Rollback the unhelved files on the shelveset branch.