Subversion Integration

for Visual Studio

VisualSVN Team
VisualSVN: Subversion Integration for Visual Studio
VisualSVN Team
Copyright © 2005-2007 VisualSVN Team
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Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 5
What is Subversion? ................................................................................................................ 5
What is VisualSVN? ................................................................................................................ 5
Intuitive status ................................................................................................................. 6
Unlimited Subversion ....................................................................................................... 6
Getting Started ................................................................................................................................ 9
Add Solution to Subversion ...................................................................................................... 9
Executing “Add Solution to Subversion” command ............................................................. 9
Commit Solution to Subversion ....................................................................................... 10
Understanding VisualSVN .............................................................................................................. 13
Why Visual Studio integration? ............................................................................................... 13
Design principles of the VisualSVN ......................................................................................... 13
Basic Work Cycle .......................................................................................................................... 15
Update your working copy ...................................................................................................... 15
Make changes ....................................................................................................................... 15
Examine Your Changes ......................................................................................................... 16
Possibly undo some changes ................................................................................................. 16
Merge others' changes ........................................................................................................... 17
Commit your changes ............................................................................................................ 18
Examining History .......................................................................................................................... 21
Web Development with VisualSVN ................................................................................................. 23
Web Development with Web Site Projects .............................................................................. 23
File System Based Web Site Projects ............................................................................. 23
Local IIS Based Web Site Projects ................................................................................. 26
Remote IIS Based Web Site Projects .............................................................................. 33
Setting up Server ........................................................................................................................... 35
Installation ............................................................................................................................. 35
Management console ............................................................................................................. 36
Repository management ......................................................................................................... 37
Access permissions management ........................................................................................... 38
FAQ .............................................................................................................................................. 41

VisualSVN Team 3
4 VisualSVN Team
Introduction
VisualSVN is a transparent integration of Subversion version control system to the Visual Studio
development environment. VisualSVN allows you to take full control on any changes in the project that are
made by you or your colleagues. With VisualSVN you can easily see the full history of modifications and
restore previous versions of your project. So, you can treat it as a “smart time machine”.

VisualSVN is built on the base of open source version control system that is a de-facto standard storage
system for software projects. There are a lot of tools and services available for Subversion such as code
review systems and hosting providers. With VisualSVN you can use these tools and services without any
limitations.

What is Subversion?
Subversion is a centralized multiuser version control system. Project files and full history of modifications
are stored in a repository. Repository can be located both on a server, and on a local computer.

Each developer has his own copy of the project on the local computer, which is called working copy. You can
freely do any changes in your working copy, such as modifications of files, addition of new files, renaming of
files and folders and so on. And you even don't need permanent connection to the repository. For example,
you can work on your laptop on a plane. When a logical bundle of modifications is ready, you can upload
it to the repository as a single atomic commit. Subversion automatically prevents occasional overwrite of
modifications, that are made by another developer. Moreover, in most cases Subversion automatically does
modification merging.

What is VisualSVN?
Subversion is a perfect version control system. VisualSVN makes Subversion easy for Visual Studio
developers. Integrating Subversion to Visual Studio, VisualSVN improves yours productivity and reduces
the probability of routine mistakes.

VisualSVN is conceptually based on the principle of “transparent Subversion”. VisualSVN automatically

reflects to Subversion all actions from Visual Studio that happens in the daily development cycles. For
example, VisualSVN automatically marks all newly added files and folders as added. This transparent
behaviour allows you to concentrate on development, when VisualSVN cares about versioning.

VisualSVN Team 5
 Intuitive status

Moreover, VisualSVN allows you to manage files in the Solution Explorer in a transparent fashion.
For example, you can drag-and-drop files between projects in the Solution Explorer and VisualSVN
transparently reflects this operation to Subversion, with full history preservation. VisualSVN supports
complete list of file management operations including addition, deletion, copying, renaming and
drag-and-drop. Transparent file management allows you to refactor without pain.

Intuitive status
VisualSVN displays traffic lights status for almost all items in the Solution Explorer. There are only three
statuses:

• green - there are no changes,

• yellow - there are some changes,

• red - there are conflicts or errors.

For each compound item such as folder or project VisualSVN displays cumulative status. For example,
there are some changes within a project's folder if status of the corresponding item in the Solutions Explorer
is yellow. For the topmost solution item in the Solution Explorer VisualSVN displays cumulative status of
the whole working copy. For convenience, VisualSVN repeats cumulative status of the whole working copy
in the right corner of Visual Studio's status bar.

Unlimited Subversion
Naturally, that except for such unique capabilities as transparent file management and intuitive status
display VisualSVN provides convenient access to all Subversion's commands. For Subversion's commands
VisualSVN uses mature and stable graphical user interface of TortoiseSVN that is a de-facto standard
Subversion client on the Windows platform. Thanks to this fact, you get unified access to Subversion both
in the Visual Studio, and in the Windows Explorer.

6 VisualSVN Team
 Unlimited Subversion

VisualSVN is a professional Subversion integration to the Visual Studio development environment.

Functionality of VisualSVN completely covers all needs of software development process such as initial
adding of a project under Subversion, refactorings, branching, merging and so on.

VisualSVN Team 7
8 VisualSVN Team
Getting Started
Version control with VisualSVN is friendly and straightforward. So you don't need to have prior Subversion
experience.

To get started with VisualSVN you need to have following software installed:

• Visual Studio 2003 or Visual Studio 2005 (all editions are supported),

• TortoiseSVN version 1.4.3 or higher,

• VisualSVN version 1.2.x.

Add Solution to Subversion

First of all you need to place your solution under Subversion control. There are only two main steps to do
it: execute “Add Solution to Subversion” command and commit your solution to the repository.

Executing “Add Solution to Subversion” command

Open or create new solution in Visual Studio. Then choose VisualSVN ⇒ Add Solution to Subversion menu
command and the corresponding dialog will be opened.

Here you should choose the place where your code will be stored. VisualSVN can add your code to a
completely new or an already existing repository. When VisualSVN makes new repository it creates the
default repository structure with branches, tags and trunk folders. Initially all your code will be stored in
the trunk folder.

Please note that when adding your code to an existing repository you can choose any kind of remote ones.
For example, you can easily add your solution to a hosted repository provided by services like Google Code
[http://code.google.com/]. Just copy a repository URL to the corresponding field in the dialog.

After this operation all appropriate source files and folders in your solution will be marked as added to
Subversion. Added files will be indicated by yellow icons in Solution Explorer. But all changes are still local

VisualSVN Team 9
 Commit Solution to Subversion

and not sent to the target repository yet. So you can review the results of adding your solution to Subversion
before the operation will be finished.

Commit Solution to Subversion

Then select VisualSVN ⇒ Commit menu item, enter comment and click OK. First versions of your source
files will be sent to the target Subversion repository.

After commit you should see green icons in Solutions Explorer indicating that your code is controlled by
Subversion and you have no local changes. You are ready to work!

10 VisualSVN Team
 Commit Solution to Subversion

VisualSVN Team 11
12 VisualSVN Team
Understanding VisualSVN
Why Visual Studio integration?
There is a powerful cross-platform command line interface to all Subversion commands. It's very suitable for
tasks such as writing build scripts. Moreover, there is a mature and stable graphical user interface for most
of Subversion operations provided by TortoiseSVN. TortoiseSVN provides a very usable context dependent
access to Subversion directly from the Windows Explorer.

However, almost all software developers spent most of the time in the integrated development environments
such as Visual Studio. In that case you're forced to work in two loosely coupled contexts: Visual Studio and
Windows Explorer, for example. Except for frequent context switch that causes dispersion of your focus,
you can be faced with the following problems:

• Daily-cycles routine errors

For example, it often happens that developer adds a new file into the project but forgets to mark this file
as an “added file” in the working copy. During the commit this new file will not be sent into the repository
that almost always causes failed builds.

• Complicated file management

With modern software development cycles you're often need to change the files layout. For example,
move a file from one project to another. To do it without loss of the history you need to perform several
routine operations both in the Visual Studio and in the Windows Explorer. Except for significant losses
of time, you also can fail with annoying errors.

• Dirty commits

It's easy to forget to check the status of the working copy before the starting the new task. It often causes
dirty commits, when a single physical commit contains changes from several logical tasks.

VisualSVN provides a transparent and comfortable access to Subversion directly from the Visual Studio.
So, you'll get all the advantages of Subversion without facing with mentioned problems.

Design principles of the VisualSVN

The main goal of the VisualSVN is to integrate Subversion into the Visual Studio transparently. All
Subversion functionality should be integrated smoothly but without significant limitations.

Main design principles of the VisualSVN are following:

• Transparent source control

VisualSVN automatically and transparently reflects to Subversion all operations from the Visual Studio
that occurs during daily software development cycles.

• Genuine Subversion

VisualSVN doesn't introduce new version control system, but makes the standard Subversion easy and
accessible for Visual Studio developers.

• Intuitive status display

VisualSVN Team 13
 Design principles of the VisualSVN

VisualSVN displays status of all versioned items in the way that allows developers to momentary
determine the necessity of performing Subversion operations.

14 VisualSVN Team
Basic Work Cycle
VisualSVN has numerous features, but on a day-to-day basis you will use only a few of them. In this section
we'll describe the most common things that you might find yourself doing with VisualSVN in the course of
a day's work.

The typical work cycle looks like this:

• Update your working copy

• Make changes

• Examine your changes

• Possibly undo some changes

• Merge others' changes

• Commit your changes

Update your working copy

When working on a project with a team, you'll want to update your working copy to receive any changes
made since your last update by other developers on the project. Use VisualSVN ⇒ Update menu item to
bring your working copy into sync with the latest revision in the repository.

During updating you'll see TortoiseSVN's Update window that will show you what files of your solution are
updated.

Make changes
Now you can get to work and make changes in your working copy. It's usually most convenient to decide
on a discrete change (or set of changes) to make, such as writing a new feature, fixing a bug, etc.

VisualSVN Team 15
 Examine Your Changes

You don't need to tell VisualSVN that you intend to make a change. Just make your changes using text
editor or Solution Explorer and VisualSVN automatically detects which changes have been done.

Please note that all your changes belong only to your own working copy until you commit them to the
repository.

Examine Your Changes

Once you've finished making changes, you need to commit them to the repository, but before you do so,
it's usually a good idea to take a look at exactly what you've changed. By examining your changes before
you commit, you can make a more accurate log message. You may also discover that you've inadvertently
changed a file, and this gives you a chance to revert those changes before committing. Additionally, this is
a good opportunity to review and scrutinize changes before publishing them.

You can see an overview of the changes you've made by using TortoiseSVN's Show Changes window.
Please choose VisualSVN ⇒ Show Changes command in the main menu.

Please note that you can examine your changes without any network access. This makes it easy to manage
your changes-in-progress when you are somewhere without a network connection, such as traveling on
an airplane.

Possibly undo some changes

Suppose while examining your changes you determine that all the changes you made to a particular file are
mistakes. Maybe you shouldn't have changed the file at all, or perhaps it would be easier to make different
changes starting from scratch.

This is a perfect opportunity to use VisualSVN ⇒ Revert main menu command. You'll see TortoiseSVN's
Revert window where you can examine and undo some of your changes.

16 VisualSVN Team
 Merge others' changes

Subversion reverts the file to its pre-modified state by overwriting it with the cached “pristine” copy from
the .svn area. But also note that you can undo any file system tree modifications. For example, you might
decide that you don't want to rename some file.

Merge others' changes

It's often happens that while you've been working on your changes somebody else already finished and
committed their own changes into the repository. So it's a good idea to merge these changes into your
working copy before commit. Just choose VisualSVN ⇒ Update main menu command and all others'
changes will be automatically incorporated into your working copy.

Let's suppose that due to a miscommunication, you and your collaborator both edited the same file at the
same time. Fortunately it's not a problem in most cases and simultaneous changes will be automatically
merged by Subversion. However, sometimes Subversion can't automatically merge changes within a file
and this file is marked as “conflicted”. You'll get a graceful notification about conflicted files in TortoiseSVN's
Update window.

VisualSVN Team 17
 Commit your changes

For further details about resolving conflicts please consult Resolve Conflicts (Merging Others'
Changes) [http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.tour.cycle.html#svn.tour.cycle.resolve] chapter in the
Version Control with Subversion book.

Commit your changes

Finally! Your edits are finished, you've merged all changes from the server, and you're ready to commit
your changes to the repository.

Please choose VisualSVN ⇒ Commit main menu command to send all of your changes to the repository.
When you commit a change, you need to supply a “log message”, describing your change. Your log message
will be attached to the new revision you create.

18 VisualSVN Team
 Commit your changes

The repository doesn't know or care if your changes make any sense as a whole; it only checks to make
sure that nobody else has changed any of the same files that you did when you weren't looking. If somebody
has done that, the entire commit will fail with a message informing you that one or more of your files are
out-of-date:

VisualSVN Team 19
 Commit your changes

At this point, you need to update your working copy, deal with any merges or conflicts that result, and
attempt your commit again.

That covers the basic work cycle for using VisualSVN. There are many other features in VisualSVN that
you can use to manage your repository and working copy, but most of your day-to-day use of VisualSVN
will involve only the commands that we've discussed so far in this chapter. We will, however, cover a few
more commands that you'll use just fairly often.

20 VisualSVN Team
Examining History
Your Subversion repository is like a time machine. It keeps a record of every change ever committed, and
allows you to explore this history by examining previous versions of files and directories as well as the
metadata that accompanies them. With VisualSVN, you can check out the repository (or restore an existing
working copy) exactly as it was at any date or revision number in the past.

However, sometimes you just want to peer into the past instead of going into the past. You can choose
VisualSVN ⇒ Show Log main menu command to view the history of all changes ever committed in your
repository.

Launching Show Log command from the main menu you'll see the whole history of your working copy root.
You also can view log for a particular file or folder launching Show Log command from the context popup
menu in Solution Explorer.

VisualSVN Team 21
22 VisualSVN Team
Web Development with VisualSVN
Web development with Visual Studio often requires sophisticated configuration management. However,
VisualSVN supports the most of possible configurations and is widely used by web developers.

There are following major options to run web development with Visual Studio:

• using Web Application projects;

• using file system based Web Site projects;

• using local IIS based Web Site projects;

• using remote IIS based Web Site projects;

VisualSVN completely supports web development with Web Application projects and partially supports web
development with Web Site projects. Please read the rest of the chapter carefully if you are using Web
Site projects.

You can also consider to migrate your Web Site projects to Web Application projects. For further details
please consider following guideline [http://webproject.scottgu.com/CSharp/Migration2/Migration2.aspx].

Web Development with Web Site Projects

VisualSVN requires all projects to be stored in a single file system subtree. This restriction can make initial
configuration a little bit difficult if you are using Web Site projects.

File System Based Web Site Projects

The content of file system based Web Site projects is simply located on your hard drive. Unfortunately, by
default Visual Studio arranges Web Site projects separately from other solution items. But you can easily
reconfigure you solution layout to make VisualSVN able to control your Web Site projects.

When you create new Web Site project Visual Studio arranges your solution files as shown on the picture
below.

VisualSVN Team 23
 File System Based
Web Site Projects

Please note that Web Site project and other solution files are located in separate file system subtrees. To
make VisualSVN able to control your solution you should create your Web Site project in a different manner.
There are following simple steps to do that.

Create Blank Solution project as shown on the picture below.

Then choose File ⇒ Add ⇒ New Web Site main menu command and specify location for it under the same
root folder with your solution file.

24 VisualSVN Team
 File System Based
Web Site Projects

Now your Web Site project and solution file are located in the same file system subtree as shown on the
picture below.

Now you can choose VisualSVN ⇒ Add Solution to Subversion main menu command to put your
solution under Subversion control and commit first version of your source files to a repository using
VisualSVN ⇒ Commit main menu command. Then you should see green traffic lights status icons in
Solution Explorer as shown on the picture below.

VisualSVN Team 25
 Local IIS Based Web Site Projects

You can easily change layout of your pre-existing Web Site project doing following steps:

• remove Web Site project from your solution (it just removes a reference to Web Site project from the
solution file and the content of Web Site project will be preserved on your hard drive);

• move your Web Site project folder to the same file system subtree with your solution file using Windows
Explorer;

• add Web Site project to your solution again from its new location using File ⇒ Add ⇒ Existing Web Site
main menu command.

Local IIS Based Web Site Projects

The content of local IIS based Web Site projects is located in a virtual directory at your local IIS web server.
This virtual directory is configured automatically by Visual Studio when you create new Web Site project.

Despite the fact that your project is stored at your local web server Visual Studio accesses content of the
project using plain UNC path. By default the mentioned virtual directory points to a physical folder located
within C:\Inetpub\wwwroot folder. The default layout of local IIS based Web Site project is shown on
the picture below.

26 VisualSVN Team
 Local IIS Based Web Site Projects

In order to allow VisualSVN to control your local IIS based Web Site project you should change the virtual
directory mapping. There are following steps to do that.

Create Blank Solution project as done in the previous section. Then choose File ⇒ Add ⇒ New Web Site
main menu command to create new Web Site project and specify location for it at the local IIS web server
as shown on the picture below.

VisualSVN Team 27
 Local IIS Based Web Site Projects

Then close solution in Visual Studio and go to Windows Explorer. In order to change mapping of the
automatically created virtual directory you need to copy content of the web site to more appropriate location.
But you need to care about NTFS permission settings.

Choose Properties context menu command for the old physical folder within C:\Inetpub\wwwroot
folder.

Open Security tab and press Advanced button. Then uncheck "Inherit from parent..." checkbox and press
Copy button in the appearing dialog to copy the permissions entries that were previously applied from the
parent of this folder. Then press OK to apply your changes.

28 VisualSVN Team
 Local IIS Based Web Site Projects

To copy the content of the Web Site project to your solution tree please execute the following command
(without line breaks):

xcopy
C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\MyWebSite
"<path-to-your-solution>\MyWebSite\"
/E /K /O /X

This command will copy the entire content of your Web Site project with all NTFS permissions preserved.

Then open IIS console and delete old virtual directory.

VisualSVN Team 29
 Local IIS Based Web Site Projects

Then create new virtual directory and map it to a new physical location of your Web Site project.

Then choose Properties context menu command in order to make sure that newly created virtual directory
has appropriate ASP.NET settings.

30 VisualSVN Team
 Local IIS Based Web Site Projects

Then choose Directory Security tab and press the topmost Edit button to modify anonymous access
and authentication settings. Please check Integrated Windows authentication checkbox in order to allow
debugging from Visual Studio. Please note that this is an optional action and it can harm production web
server security.

VisualSVN Team 31
 Local IIS Based Web Site Projects

Then go back to Visual Studio and open your solution again. Your Web Site project will be automatically
opened from its new location. Now you can choose VisualSVN ⇒ Add Solution to Subversion main menu
command to put your solution under Subversion control and commit first version of your source files to a
repository using VisualSVN ⇒ Commit main menu command. Then you should see green traffic lights lights
status icons in Solution Explorer as shown at the picture below.

32 VisualSVN Team
 Remote IIS Based
Web Site Projects

Please note that you can easily change layout of your pre-existing local IIS based Web Site project. Just
skip steps related to new solution and Web Site project creation.

Remote IIS Based Web Site Projects

The content of remote IIS based Web Site project is located in a virtual directory at a remote IIS web server.
Remote IIS based Web Site projects are almost unsupported by VisualSVN.

The only possible way to control remote IIS based Web Site projects with VisualSVN is to map a remote
virtual directory to a physical folder on a local machine. But this solution seems to be ridiculous and requires
more sophisticated NTFS permissions management.

VisualSVN Team 33
34 VisualSVN Team
Setting up Server
Typical Subversion setup for team work involves a single server machine being accessed from clients on
computers all over the office or, perhaps, all over the world. There are many ways to configure Subversion
server. This section will consider the easiest but powerful way based on VisualSVN Server. VisualSVN
Server is a package that contains everything you need to install, configure and manage Subversion server
for your team on Windows platform. It includes Subversion, Apache and a management console. You can
easily download VisualSVN Server from its official page [http://www.visualsvn.com/server/].

Installation
VisualSVN Server is distributed as all-in-one standard Windows Installer package. The installation process
is quite easy and intuitive. There is only one configuration screen during the setup process (see the
screenshot below).

You will be asked to choose the installation path for VisualSVN Server. It's acceptable to leave the default
value.

Then you should choose the path where all your Subversion repositories will be stored. It's also acceptable
to leave the default value. This folder will be created if you install VisualSVN for the first time. If you already
have some repositories inside that folder they will be automatically connected to the VisualSVN Server.
VisualSVN can host any number of independent Subversion repositories.

You also should choose server name and server port. In most cases it's also acceptable to leave default
values.

At the end of installation process you will be asked to run VisualSVN Server management console as shown
on the screenshot below.

VisualSVN Team 35
 Management console

Management console
VisualSVN Server provides a simple and intuitive management console implemented as standard MMC
snap-in. You can access it through Start ⇒ All Programs menu or through standard Computer Management
console.

36 VisualSVN Team
 Repository management

With management console you easily create new repositories and browse existing ones. It also allows you
to manage access permissions for the repositories.

Repository management
Repository management commands are accessible through context menu for VisualSVN
Server/Repositories node (see the picture below).

VisualSVN Team 37
 Access permissions management

While creation new repository VisualSVN Server can automatically create default repository structure (i.e.
folders trunk, branches and tags).

After creating repository you need to setup permissions for your repository to access it from web-browser
and various Subversion clients.

Access permissions management

First of all, you need to create users accounts. Please choose Create User context menu command.

38 VisualSVN Team
 Access permissions management

You will be asked to enter user name and password for the user that will be created. Please note that user
name and password are case sensitive.

VisualSVN Server automatically setups read/write access to all repositories for every authenticated user.
For example, you will be able to browse your repositories in the standard web browser. Please choose
Browse context menu command and the standard web browser will be opened at the appropriate URL in
your VisualSVN Server. You should enter user name and password of one of created users to browse the
content of your repository in the web browser.

There is a simple and intuitive model for user rights management in the VisualSVN Server. Please choose
Security context menu command for any path in your repository and the user rights management dialog
will be opened.

VisualSVN Team 39
 Access permissions management

In general, user rights management in VisualSVN Server conforms to standard user rights management
model on the Windows platform. But there are some differences that will be described below.

There are only three access levels:

• No Access - there is no access at all;

• Read Only - there is a read only access;

• Read / Write - there is a full access.

Access permission is assigned to a user for a path in the repository. That means that the user has the
specified access level to the specified path. Permissions are inherited recursively from parents to childrens.
That means that a user will have read access to all children paths of /svn/MyProject/trunk if such
level of access is granted for /svn/MyProject/trunk. But it's possible to specify a different access level
for subpaths. The general rule is that permission for the most specific path always overrides permissions
for less specific paths. VisualSVN Server marks all paths with specific permissions by red stars. So you can
easily review your permissions settings.

Rights assigned for the topmost Repositories node in the management console are inherited by all
repositories.

There is a special user Everyone that allows you to setup access rigths for all authenticated users
(anonymous access isn't supported by VisualSVN Server).

40 VisualSVN Team
FAQ
This page covers the most frequently asked questions related to VisualSVN. If you have a question that is
not answered below, please contact us [http://www.visualsvn.com/contacts.html].

1. VisualSVN
Visual Studio 2008 crashes with VisualSVN installed. What's the problem?

Please make sure that you have the latest version of VisualSVN installed. Please don't hesitate to
contact us if Visual Studio crashes with the VisualSVN version 1.3.1 or higher.

Does VisualSVN work with nightly builds of TortoiseSVN 1.5 (i.e. TortoiseSVN 1.4.99)?

Nightly builds of TortoiseSVN 1.5 include Subversion of not-yet-released version 1.5 and are not
supported by VisualSVN. Data formats changes are still possible in the current development branch
of Subversion 1.5. So it's rather dangerous to use nightly builds of TortoiseSVN in production.

We are going to provide a beta version of VisualSVN with support for TortoiseSVN 1.5 nightly builds as
soon as Subversion 1.5 will become more stable. For now please use stable TortoiseSVN build (1.4.5).

Does VisualSVN work as a generic MSSCCI/SCC provider?

No, it doesn't. It's because of following:

• MSSCCI is dedicated to Visual SourceSafe and not very situated for Subversion;

• MSSCCI is dedicated for Checkout-Edit-Checkin approach, but Subversion is built from

Edit-Merge-Commit;

• MSSCCI doesn't provide atomic transactions;

• MSSCCI provider can't show status for folders;

• only one MSSCCI provider is available at time. There are a lot of use cases, where Subversion and
Visual SourceSafe controlled projects are used together in one solution.

What versions of Visual Studio is supported by VisualSVN?

VisualSVN officially supports Visual Studio 2003, Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008.

Does VisualSVN work with Visual Studio Express Editions?

No, it doesn't. It's because Express editions of Visual Studio doesn't support plugins. VisualSVN can
be used with any other edition of Visual Studio 2003, 2005 & 2008.

Is it possible to customize VisualSVN's menu items location?

Yes, it's possible in Visual Studio 2005. There is a standard menu customization feature in Visual
Studio 2005 and you can easily use it to customize VisualSVN's menu items location.

• Please make sure that you've opened solution that is under Subversion;

• Choose Tools ⇒ Customize main menu command and check Context Menu item on the Toolbars
pane. You will notice that several new items with context menu titles are appeared on the main
toolbar.

VisualSVN Team 41
 • Then you can choose and customize menu for different contexts. For example, you can choose
Project and Solution Context Menus ⇒ Item toolbar menu command to customize menu for the item
currently selected in Solution Explorer.

• Note that you can easily drag and drop commands within context menu. Moreover, you can drag
and drop additional menu commands from the Commands pane.

• Note that you can customize menu for items with different traffic lights status. For example, you can
customize menu for yellow file by selecting yellow file item in Solution Explorer and then choosing
Tools ⇒ Customize main menu command.

Is it possible to temporarily disable VisualSVN?

No, it's not possible in the current version of VisualSVN. However, there is a workaround that allows
you to temporarily disable/enable VisualSVN. To disable VisualSVN please download and execute this
registry file [../files/DisableVSVN.reg]. To enable VisualSVN back please execute following command
line: "devenv /ResetSkipPkgs"

Does VisualSVN support SVN+SSH repositories?

Yes, it does. But actually there are some misconfiguration problems between VisualSVN and
TortoiseSVN. To fix that problems you can explicitly provide SSH tunnel settings in Subversion
configuration file. Please add following string to section [tunnels] in Subversion configuration file at
C:\Documents and Settings\<user-name>\Application Data\Subversion\ config :

[tunnels]
ssh = "C:/Program Files/TortoiseSVN/bin/TortoisePlink.exe"

Visual Studio crashes with VisualSVN installed. What's the problem?

The problem could be caused by incorrectly registered actxprxy.dll. It happens because of the
erratic whole system misconfiguration not caused by VisualSVN. In that case the problem could be
fixed by re-registering actxprxy.dll. Please choose Run command in the Windows Start menu, enter
"regsvr32 actxprxy.dll" command line and press Enter. You should be notified that actxprxy.dll was
successfully registered. Please don't hesitate to contact us if this will not help.

I have a solution with projects from several working copies. Why VisualSVN shows status for
only a few of my projects?

VisualSVN doesn't support multiple working copies within a single solution by design. Otherwise
some basic concepts of Subversion such as atomic commits will be violated. However, there is
a workaround based on the svn:externals property. The svn:externals property is a kind of link
to the another Subversion repository. Using this property you can incorporate code from several
repositories within single working copy. For further details please consult Subversion documentation
[http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.advanced.externals.html].

When executing VisualSVN's solution-wide commands, the entire working copy (including
folders that aren't part of the solution) is processed that is a very slow operation for me. Is
there a way to optimize this behavior?

VisualSVN performs all solution-wide operations from a working copy root. Working copy root is
automatically determined by VisualSVN as the topmost folder in your working copy. You can easily

42 VisualSVN Team
 adjust your working copy root settings choosing VisualSVN ⇒ Set Working Copy Root main menu
command.

I do not see traffic lights status icons for my project in Solution Explorer. What should I do?

Please make sure that your project is under Subversion control. You can easily place your project
under Subversion choosing VisualSVN ⇒ Add Solution to Subversion main menu command. In other
cases please check your working copy root settings choosing VisualSVN ⇒ Set Working Copy Root
main menu command.

VisualSVN automatically adds files that I don't want to be added under Subversion. Is there
a way to prevent this?

There are svn:ignore settings for solution, projects and any other folder in working
copy. You can choose VisualSVN ⇒ Properties pop-up menu command for an item
in Solution Explorer and setup what files should be ignored under that item. Files
that satisfy patterns listed in svn:ignore property will not be automatically added to
Subversion. For example, you can enter something like following: svn:ignore = "bin
obj *.user *.build-res" . For further details please consider Subversion documentation
[http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.advanced.props.html#svn.advanced.props.special.ignore].

Is it possible to download an older version of VisualSVN?

You can download any ever released version of VisualSVN from our Change Log [../changelog.html]
page.

2. VisualSVN Server
Can I use VisualSVN Server management console with an already installed Subversion server
instance?

Not, you can't. The management console isn't intended to manage pre-existing Subversion servers.
But you can copy your pre-existing repositories to a C:\Repositories folder and VisualSVN Server
will automatically connect to them.

What is the cost of VisualSVN Server?

VisualSVN Server is a freeware and can be used for general commercial purposes without any fees.
For further details please consider VisualSVN Server End User License Agreement.

Will VisualSVN Server remain free in the future?

We're going to keep VisualSVN Server free in the current set of functionality at least.

Does VisualSVN Server support Windows Authentication (SSPI, LDAP)?

Windows Authentication will be supported in the future releases of VisualSVN Server.

Is VisualSVN Server compatible with standard Subversion clients?

VisualSVN Server is based on pure Subversion and can be used with any standard Subversion clients.

Why I can't connect to VisualSVN Server using standard clients (command line Subversion,
TortoiseSVN etc)?

VisualSVN Team 43
 In most cases that problem occurs because of network settings misconfiguration on a client side.
Please check the following:

• Is the server is accessible from the client machine using ping command?;

• What are proxy settings in your client? The general problem is that VisualSVN Server can be located
in your intranet and your proxy server doesn't allow you to access intranet sites.

• What URL do you try to connect? You can use Copy URL context menu command in VisualSVN
Server management console to get correct URL of your repositories.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if the above will not help.

Does VisualSVN Server support svn:// protocol?

Not, it doesn't. VisualSVN Server provides Apache based Subversion server and is accessible over
http:// or https:// protocols only.

Does VisualSVN Server support secure connections?

Yes, it does. VisualSVN Server supports connection over or https:// protocol. You should choose
https:// protocol support during the installation process of VisualSVN Server.

Is it possible to install VisualSVN Server on Windows 2000 family?

No, it isn't possible. VisualSVN Server is not supported on Windows 2000. Please install it on XP,
Windows 2003 or Vista.

Is it possible to integrate VisualSVN Server with an existing Apache instance?

No, it isn't possible. However, you can use Apache Reverse Proxy as a proxy for VisualSVN Server.
For further details please consider http://silmor.de/49.

Is it possible to change the repository path after installation?

No, it isn't possible in the current version of VisualSVN Server. Please reinstall VisualSVN Server in
order to change any settings.

What is the recommended way to backup VisualSVN Server?

You can backup your repositories using svnadmin hotcopy Subversion

command. For further details please consider Subversion documentation
[http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.reposadmin.maint.html#svn.reposadmin.maint.backup].

Please note that any other VisualSVN Server related data such as user rights settings are stored right
here in your repositories folder (C:\Repositories by default).

Does VisualSVN Server provide standard Subversion binaries such as svnadmin.exe?

Standard command line binaries by default are installed in C:\Program Files\VisualSVN

Server\bin folder. But they're not registered as default Subversion binaries from compatibility
reasons. You can access these binaries by choosing All task ⇒ Start command prompt context menu
command in the VisualSVN Server management console.

Is there a 64-bit version of VisualSVN Server?

There is no strong necessity in 64-bit version of VisualSVN Server. 32-bit version should work correctly
on 64-bit platforms without any limitations.

44 VisualSVN Team
 I'm trying to connect to a VisualSVN Server instance and get following error message "Error:
PROPFIND of '<url>': 405 Method Not Allowed". What's the problem?

Most likely this error message means that you're using incorrect URL. Please use Copy URL to
Clipboard context menu command in VisualSVN Server management console to get correct URL
of your repository path.

Please note that standard Subversion clients don't allow to browse the list of available Subversion
repositories. You can browse repositories content only.

VisualSVN Team 45
46 VisualSVN Team