Your deleted branch will appear in the tree without any information that it was deleted. It’s right that the branch wasn’t removed because TFS handles deletes only with a status change. But I don’t want to see the deleted files, right? Or at least they should be marked as deleted. Because I think this is really confusing, I posted a bug at connect:
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=336734

How can I really remove the branch?
To really remove your branch, go for a destroy with the tf command line util.

To remove an item out off source control (not only mark as deleted), run the destroy command:
>tf destroy {BRANCHNAME}

Because you already have deleted the branch, the command will throw an exception that the branch wasn’t found. This is because deleted items will get renamed with a deletion-id suffix. To get the deletion-id, go and run the properties command:
>tf properties {BRANCH_NAME}

Now, after you have the deletion-id, go and run the destroy command again (don’t forget the x!):
>tf destroy {BRANCHNAME};x{DELETION-ID}

The properties window of your source control folder will show only the existing branches .

Some people don’t want or need a Visual Studio Team Explorer, because they are none Microsoft-based developers like Oracle DBA’s. But you want to use Team Foundation Server as your source control repository by default, because you like the integration of work items or the main development of your project is in .NET.

Unfortunately, this is by default not available from TFS. But there are two tools around which are closing this gap!

• LizardTF which is open source
• Dubblebock TFS from Benjamin Day Consulting for about $25 per user

I hope Microsoft will implement this in a future release by it’s own. But there’s now no excuse anymore to say you need a Subversion repository because of the shell integration.