How to Set up a Source Control on Windows without spending a dime.

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• NateS - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link

  There's a new SCM/version control software from ionForge called Evolution. It gives you easy, encrypted connectivity for collaborating over the web. It's quick to install and relatively intuitive to use. Single-user licenses are free at the ionForge website and multi-user licenses are $550 per license, which is less than comparable alternatives.

• NateS - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link

  There's a new SCM/version control software from ionForge called Evolution. It gives you easy, encrypted connectivity for collaborating over the web. It's quick to install and relatively intuitive to use. Single-user licenses are free at the ionForge website and multi-user licenses are $550 per license, which is less than comparable alternatives.

• DonPMitchell - Wednesday, January 5, 2005 - link

  I'd stay away from CVS, its pretty lame old UNIX software from way back. Perforce is the best you can find, used on some huge professional projects. And if you can get a free version for small projects, then that's perfect.

• jayoung - Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - link

  I'm having a tremendous headache setting it up. Here's the error I recieve:
  
  
  Followed the instructions up to the part where you create a new module
  and I keep getting the same error.
  
  In C:\DOCUME~1\Joseph\LOCALS~1\Temp\TortoiseCVS make new module temp\:
  "C:\Program Files\TortoiseCVS\cvs.exe" "-q" "-x" "import" "-m" ""
  "testmod" "tcvs-vendor" "tcvs-release"
  CVSROOT=:sspi:Joseph@localhost:2401/cvsroot
  
  cvs [server aborted]: can't create temporary directory
  C:\temp\cvstemp/cvs-serv2304: Permission denied
  
  Error, CVS operation failed

• Pauli - Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - link

  Foxbat121-
  My company has a very large Clearcase installation (400+ developers) with most clients being Windows machines and we are generally pleased with the features and performance. Of course, the first couple of years were hell. The last 3 or 4 years have been trouble free for the most part. I've been using it daily for more that 5 years now and have never experienced a license server problem.

• Foxbat121 - Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - link

  My Company spent near a million $$ upgraded to ClearCase a few years back. It's a biggest waste of money and bottle neck on productivity. Yes, it does have extensive administrative tools and features. That's why managers all love ClearCase because they are the ones who don't have to write a single line of code. For software engineers, we have to spend half of the day just to synchronize every one's work. Spend probably one hour to make code changes and spend rest of the day try to deliver that code change to the CC so every one else could get the changes next day. It's slow and buggy as hell.
  
  Yes, it does have Windows Explorer integration. However, if the license server is down for whatever reason, your Explorer (and every one else with CC installed) will have 2-minute delay every time you try to bring up the context menu even though you're not using any of the CC features.
  
  

• Bookie - Monday, January 3, 2005 - link

  you can count me in for another vote for Subversion. My company uses VSS and I agree with everyone else, it sucks. I personally use Subversion for my own stuff and I'm working on convincing my company to swtich. I'd like to see Anandtech make the switch and spread the news.

• neogodless - Thursday, December 30, 2004 - link

  I got it to work with NO username after some experimentation, but it didn't match the example in the "tutorial". Thanks for the help, anyway!

• Jason Clark - Thursday, December 30, 2004 - link

  neogodless, if you have difficulties with SSPI, try pserver, it will still auth against the NT user database. SSPI should work though.
  
  Cheers

• Sokaku - Thursday, December 30, 2004 - link

  I've used Source Safe, PVCS, CVS, Subversion & ClearCase.
  
  The strongest of these products is without a doubt Rational ClearCase. But as other mentioned, its also by far the most expensive on all fronts (administration, support, hardware, price).
  
  ClearCase is integrated into explorer with its view architecture (defining views is not trivial and can cause alot of headackes).
  
  Subversion is also directly supported by simple integration (tigris) of the explorer. However using the recommended way of handling branches, its very logical and straightforward to use.
  
  As a pricy consultant I would recommend ClearCase for any big companies with alot of cash.
  
  As a person with a love for programming, I would recommend subversion to anyone else.
  
  I would in no way ever spend time on CVS, PVCS or Source Safe ever again.