From SourceSafe to Team Foundation Server

Question

Our team would like to move from the Visual SourceSafe (VSS) to the Team Foundation Server (TFS). I know that the TFS is much more than just a version control system, but for the first time I would like to use it this way.

Currently our projects are organized within the single solution that consists of the shared part (common library) and many customer projects.

Is there some kind of migration guide that would describe such a challenge? Or TFS enforces its own usage scenarios (versioning of projects, releases, etc.)?

Answer 1

TFS and VSS are radically different beasts.

That said, the major problems with moving from VSS to TFS is generally in the developer's mind.

Check out the following blogs:

TFS from a VSS User's perspective: http://blogs.msdn.com/robcaron/archive/2006/10/29/901115.aspx

And of course, the original http://sstjean.blogspot.com/2006/10/document-from-vss-to-tfs-introduction.html

Answer 2

(Feel free to downvote me but...) If you're after better source control then TFS is IMHO overkill. I recommend you look into Subversion. VisualSVN is a superb ($49) plug-in to Visual Studio that works seamlessly alongside arguably the best SVN client TortoiseSVN. In addition they provide a free, easy to set up, Windows package of the Subversion server-side stuff called VisualSVN Server.

To learn all about the Subversion way of working there's the great Red Bean book.

(Not affiliated with VisualSVN, just a Subversion fanboy)

Answer 3

See also this similar question, which includes some good answers (including one by someone on the TFS team.)

Answer 4

When we switched from Sourcesafe to TFS2005 the biggest hurdle were Sourcesafe's shared files, the "Get latest on checkout" approach and the branch/merge "support" in Sourcesafe. Everybody feared branching and merging in Sourcesafe and it took some time convincing all colleagues that it is not that bad with TFS.

We decided to not migrate files from Sourcesafe. We used TFS2005 for a new project and kept the old stuff in Sourcesafe. We didn't want to keep the project and folder structure which had grown over the years and was rather unorganized.

The old stuff is history now and we do all development work with TFS2008.