The problem is that I'm checking out some files with special characters in their filenames -- when TortoiseSVN attempts to check the code out, it can't create those files and the checkout fails. this applies to updating as well. Is there any fix/workaround to this, maybe to give an alternate filename or something?
Update: Apparently, those files are created by xcode. Does anyone know what they do? Will it break the build if I change the filenames, like all the > to - or something?
If you have write access, you can rename the files directly in the repo by using repo browser without having to actually check out the file first.
I don't think this can be done. As far as I know, both global-ignore and svn:ignore serve to keep files out of the repository only. The only solution I can think of is to check out the whole repository on OS X, make the changes, check the code, and import them back.
If the files are generated automatically by some tool, you should be able to set up ignore rules that prevent them from coming into the repository again, depending on what the file names look like.
Additional idea: You could try mount an OS X partition/drive to your Windows system and see whose naming rules apply. I think however, that Windows generally forbids the use of reserved characters in all files it handles, no matter whether the target file system would support them or not.