Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS) is a source control software package oriented towards small software development projects. Like most source control systems, SourceSafe creates a virtual library of computer files. While most commonly used for source code, SourceSafe can actually handle any type of file in its database, but prior versions have been shown to be unstable when confronted with large amounts of non-textual data (images, binary executables, etc.).
Starting with VSS 2005, Microsoft has added a client–server mode. In this mode, clients do not need write access to an SMB share where they can potentially damage the SS database. Instead, files must be accessed through the VSS client tools - the VSS windows client, the VSS command-line tool, or some application that integrates with or emulates these client tools.
For more details visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_SourceSafe
History
SourceSafe was originally created by a company called One Tree Software. One Tree SourceSafe had gone through several releases in their 1.x to 2.x cycles, supporting DOS, OS/2 (with a Presentation Manager GUI), Windows, Windows NT, Mac, and Unix. When Microsoft bought OneTree in 1994,[3] they immediately ceased development on all versions except for Windows. Microsoft "Visual SourceSafe 3.1", a Windows 16-bit-only, rebranded One Tree 3.0 version, was briefly available before Microsoft released a Version 4.0.Overview
SourceSafe was initially not a client/server SCM, but rather a local only SCM. Architecturally, this serves as both a strength and weakness of design, depending on the environment it is used in. It allows a single user system to be set up with less configuration than that of some other SCM systems. In addition, the process of backing up can be as simple as copying all of the contents of a single directory tree. For multi-user environments, however, it lacks many important features found in other SCM products, including support for atomic commits of multiple files (CVS has the same problem as it is built upon the original RCS). SourceSafe inherits its shared functionality using direct remote file system access to all the files in the repository. This, together with a bug where the code is using old memory after a call to reallocate, are contributing factors to why SS databases sometimes go bad.Starting with VSS 2005, Microsoft has added a client–server mode. In this mode, clients do not need write access to an SMB share where they can potentially damage the SS database. Instead, files must be accessed through the VSS client tools - the VSS windows client, the VSS command-line tool, or some application that integrates with or emulates these client tools.
For more details visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_SourceSafe
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