In VS,

1. open the git pane.
2. View the branches sub-pane.
3. Expand the'origin' branch
4. right click the master branch (under origin)
5. select merge master branch in origin\branch 2
6. under local branches right branch 2 pull latest
7. done

@Albertk
The workaround I've found is to use Git outside of VS. I agree this is a pain, but MS seem to have a very one-dimensional view of how you should use Git.

I installed Git-Bash some time ago and the commands

git checkout master  
git merge version2  

should work on your local repository.

You probably should close down VS (or at least the project) before doing this - I've not tried with VS open in case it breaks something.

The way to merge development_print branch into master branch as below:

VS -> Team Explorer -> Branches -> double click master branch -> Merge -> select development_print for Merge from branch -> Merge.

The select box shows:

development_print
master
origin/development_print
origin/master

That means you have branches development_print and master for both local and remote. origin/ means branches exist in remote.

If you don’t want the development_print branch after merging you can delete it for local and remote:

Team Explorer -> Branches -> select development_print -> right click -> Delete -> select development_print under remotes/origin -> Delete Branch From Remote.

Hi @Ronald Rex , 

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A!

To merge a feature branch into main branch in Visual Studio, you can double-click on the main branch in the branch list.

Then, right-click on the feature branch and select “Merge ‘feature_branch’ into ‘main’”.

For more information, you can refer to: Merge and rebase branches.

Sincerely,

Anna

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STARTING VS Code 1.48, many of the Git commands are now available as menu options from the Source Control panel, including merging of branches. See the "New Git View submenus" section of the July 2020 (1.48) release notes:

Thanks to the new submenu proposed API, the Git View and More Actions (...) menu has been refactored for better organization of several commands:

To merge branches (ex. merge featureA into master):

1. Select the destination branch (ex. master)
   • Select ... > Checkout to...
   • Select the branch
2. Select the branch to be merged (ex. featureA)
   • Select ... > Branch > Merge Branch...
   • Select the branch
3. Push the updated branch (ex. master)
   • Select ... > Pull,Push > Push

BEFORE VS Code 1.48, VS Code Source Control has no UI for merging branches. But you can do the merge with commands from the Command Palette.

To merge branches (ex. merge my-feature-branch into master):

1. Checkout the destination branch (master)

   • Command Palette > Git: Checkout to...

   • Select the branch

     

2. Make sure master is synchronized with the remote

   

3. Merge the feature branch

   • Command Palette > Git: Merge Branch..

   • Select the branch

     

4. Confirm the merge

   • If the merge completed without conflicts, you should now see from the Source Control UI or from the status bar that you now have new commits that need to be pushed to the remote. (The merge operation was only executed in your local copy of the repo).

     

While using the VS Code Source Control UI can work, I highly recommend learning how to use Git from the command line, as those can be simpler to use, yet they give you more control over Git operations. Plus, they work even outside VS Code, as long as you have access to a terminal.

As an example, the same branch merging operation can be performed from a terminal.

$ git checkout master
$ git pull
$ git merge my-feature-branch
$ git log
commit 54971a1cc845459742392061e71ef4fcb2444357 (HEAD -> master)
Merge: e8fad11 b1d9050
Author: XXX
Date:   Wed May 13 20:14:15 2020 +0900

    Merge branch 'my-feature-branch'
...

The best place to learn about Git is here: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2.

For specific to git merge:

• 3.2 Git Branching - Basic Branching and Merging
• What is the best (and safest) way to merge a Git branch into master?

Without asking about the strategy you're following in your team.. I wonder why the option merge origin/candidate into master is disabled! You could

1. Restart Visual Studio and wait untill no background processes are there.
2. Right click on local master -> fetch and wait.
3. Right click on Remote candidate -> merge origin/candidate into master -> Ok.

Note: keep an eye on output window in visual studio -> select 'Source Control - Git' to see git commands output.

Check out the attached link from Microsoft

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/kenakamu/2017/10/01/git-and-visual-studio-2017-part-5/

Take a look at the Merge in VS section. Hopefully this should provide enough of a guide for you to perform the requested action.

Here's a quick snippet from the page that specifically shows the steps on merging branches. You'll need to just change the branches that are being referenced to the ones that you're using -

2. Go to Team Explorer and select Branches. Checkout master and click “Merge”. Same as Git command, you need to be on master to merge dev branch.

3. Select dev on “Merge from branch” menu and click Merge. Note that I keep “Commit changes after merging” checkbox on.