  Magnetic properties of multicomponent alloys depend sensitively on the degree
of atomic order on the different crystallographic sites. In this work we
demonstrate the magnetic contrast between bulk and thin-film samples of the
Heusler alloy V$_{2}$FeAl. Arc-melted bulk ingots show practically no site
preference of the elements (A2 structure), whereas magnetron-sputtered
thin-film samples display a higher degree of atomic ordering with a tendency
towards XA-type order. Electronic structure calculations favour ferrimagnetic
XA-type ordering, and the effect of different pairwise atomic disorder on the
element specific and net magnetic moments are evaluated to reproduce
experimental observations. XA-type thin-films with iron moment of 1.24
$\mu_{\mathrm{B}}$ determined by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism are in
agreement with calculation, but the measured net moment of 1.0
$\mu_{\mathrm{B}}$ per formula unit and average vanadium moment are smaller
than expected from calculations. The measured Curie temperature is
approximately 500 K. Films with a higher degree of disorder have a
T$_{\mathrm{C}}$ close to 300 K with a net moment of 0.1 $\mu_{\mathrm{B}}$ at
low temperature. The large calculated vanadium moments are destroyed by partial
disorder on $4d$ vanadium sites. By contrast, the arc-melted and annealed bulk
alloy with a fully-disordered A2 structure shows no spontaneous magnetization;
it is a Pauli paramagnet with dimensionless susceptibility
$\chi_{\mathrm{v}}=-2.95\times10^{-4}$.
