subversion integration for visual studio

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Subversion Integrationfor Visual Studio

VisualSVN Team


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VisualSVN: Subversion Integration for Visual StudioVisualSVN TeamCopyright 2005-2007 VisualSVN Team

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DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED AS IS AND ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS ANDWARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ORNON-INFRINGEMENT, ARE DISCLAIMED, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT SUCH DISCLAIMERS ARE HELD TO BE LEGALLYINVALID.


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VisualSVN Team 3

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 5

What is Subversion? ................................................................................................................ 5What is VisualSVN? ................................................... ....................................................... ...... 5

Intuitive status ................................................... ........................................................ ...... 6Unlimited Subversion ........................................................ ............................................... 6

Getting Started .................................................. ........................................................ ...................... 9

Add Solution to Subversion .................................................. .................................................... 9Executing Add Solution to Subversion command ................................. ............................ 9

Commit Solution to Subversion ....................................................................................... 10Understanding VisualSVN .................................................... ....................................................... ... 13

Why Visual Studio integration? ..................................................................... .......................... 13Design principles of the VisualSVN ......................................................................................... 13

Basic Work Cycle ................................................. ........................................................ ................. 15Update your working copy ...................................................................................................... 15Make changes ................................................ ........................................................ ............... 15

Examine Your Changes ....................................................... .................................................. 16Possibly undo some changes ....................................................... .......................................... 16

Merge others' changes ........................................................................................................... 17Commit your changes ......................................................................... ................................... 18

Examining History ............................................... ........................................................ ................... 21Setting up Server ........................................................................................................................... 23

Installation ............................................... ........................................................ ...................... 23

Management console ..................................................................... ........................................ 24Repository management ......................................................................................................... 25

Access permissions management ...................................................... ..................................... 26FAQ ....................................................... ........................................................ ............................... 29

Questions ................................................... ....................................................... .................... 29Answers ................................................... ........................................................ ..................... 30


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4 VisualSVN Team


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VisualSVN Team 5

IntroductionVisualSVN 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 aremade 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 storagesystem 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 anylimitations.

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 canfreely do any changes in your working copy, such as modifications of files, addition of new files, renaming offiles 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 ofmodifications, 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 Studiodevelopers. 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. Forexample, VisualSVN automatically marks all newly added files and folders as added. This transparentbehaviour allows you to concentrate on development, when VisualSVN cares about versioning.


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Intuitive status

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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 VisualSVNtransparently reflects this operation to Subversion, with full history preservation. VisualSVN supports

complete list of file management operations including addition, deletion, copying, renaming anddrag-and-drop. Transparent file management allows you to refactor without pain.

Intuitive statusVisualSVN displays traffic lightsstatus 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 Exploreris yellow. For the topmost solution item in the Solution Explorer VisualSVN displays cumulative status ofthe 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 statusdisplay 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 standardSubversion 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.


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Unlimited Subversion

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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.


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Commit Solution to Subversion

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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.


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

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


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Understanding VisualSVN

Why Visual Studio integration?

There is a powerful cross-platform command line interface to all Subversion commands. It's very suitable fortasks such as writing build scripts. Moreover, there is a mature and stable graphical user interface for mostof Subversion operations provided by TortoiseSVN. TortoiseSVN provides a very usable context dependentaccess to Subversion directly from the Windows Explorer.

However, almost all software developers spent most of the time in the integrated development environmentssuch 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 repositorythat 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 severalroutine 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. AllSubversion 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 Studiothat occurs during daily software development cycles.

Genuine Subversion

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

Intuitive status display


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Design principles of the VisualSVN

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VisualSVN displays status of all versioned items in the way that allows developers to momentary

determine the necessity of performing Subversion operations.


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VisualSVN Team 15

Basic Work CycleVisualSVN has numerous features, but on a day-to-day basis you will use only a few of them. In this sectionwe'll describe the most common things that you might find yourself doing with VisualSVN in the course ofa 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 decideon a discrete change (or set of changes) to make, such as writing a new feature, fixing a bug, etc.


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Examine Your Changes

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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 ChangesOnce 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 beforeyou 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 isa 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 onan airplane.

Possibly undo some changes

Suppose while examining your changes you determine that all the changes you made to a particular file aremistakes. 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.


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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 mightdecide that you don't want to rename some file.


It's often happens that while you've been working on your changes somebody else already finished andcommitted 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 thesame 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 fileand this file is marked as conflicted. You'll get a graceful notification about conflicted files in TortoiseSVN's

Update window.


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Commit your changes

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

out-of-date:


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Examining HistoryYour 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 themetadata 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 intothe past instead of going intothe 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 popupmenu in Solution Explorer.


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VisualSVN Team 23

Setting up ServerTypical Subversion setup for team work involves a single server machine being accessed from clients oncomputers 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 serverfor 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/].

InstallationVisualSVN 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 thescreenshot below).

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

Then you should choose the path where all your Subversion repositories will be stored. It's also acceptableto 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 defaultvalues.

At the end of installation process you will be asked to run VisualSVN Server management console as shownon the screenshot below.
http://www.visualsvn.com/server/http://www.visualsvn.com/server/


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Repository management

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With management console you easily create new repositories and browse existing ones. It also allows youto 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).


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Access permissions management

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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.


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


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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 thecontent of your repository in the web browser.

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


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In general, user rights management in VisualSVN Server conforms to standard user rights managementmodel 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 thespecified 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 suchlevel of access is granted for /svn/MyProject/trunk. But it's possible to specify a different access levelfor 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 caneasily 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).


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FAQThis page covers the most frequently asked questions related to VisualSVN. If you have a question that isnot answered below, please contact us [http://www.visualsvn.com/contacts.html].

Questions

VisualSVN

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

Does VisualSVN work as a generic MSSCCI/SCC provider?

What versions of Visual Studio is supported by VisualSVN?

Does VisualSVN work with Visual Studio Express Editions?

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

Is it possible to temporarily disable VisualSVN?

Does VisualSVN support SVN+SSH repositories?

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

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

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

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

VisualSVN Server

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

What is the cost of VisualSVN Server?

Will VisualSVN Server remain free in the future?

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

Is VisualSVN Server compatible with standard Subversion clients?

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

etc)?

Does VisualSVN Server support svn:// protocol?

Does VisualSVN Server support secure connections?

Is it possible to integrate VisualSVN Server with an existing Apache instance?
http://www.visualsvn.com/contacts.htmlhttp://www.visualsvn.com/contacts.html


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Answers

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Is it possible to change the repository path after installation?

What is the recommended way to backup VisualSVN Server?

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

Is there a 64-bit version of VisualSVN Server?

Answers

VisualSVN

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

A: 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.

Q: Does VisualSVN work as a generic MSSCCI/SCC provider?

A: 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 fromEdit-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.

Q: What versions of Visual Studio is supported by VisualSVN?

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

Q: Does VisualSVN work with Visual Studio Express Editions?

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

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

A: Yes, it's possible in Visual Studio 2005. There is a standard menu customization feature in VisualStudio 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 ToolsCustomize 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.

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.


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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 toSubversion. For example, you can enter something like following: svn:ignore = "binobj *.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].

VisualSVN ServerQ: Can I use VisualSVN Server management console with an already installed Subversion server

instance?

A: 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.

Q: What is the cost of VisualSVN Server?

A: 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.

Q: Will VisualSVN Server remain free in the future?

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

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

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

Q: Is VisualSVN Server compatible with standard Subversion clients?

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

Q: Why I can't connect to VisualSVN Server using standard clients (command line Subversion,

TortoiseSVN etc)?

A: 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 VisualSVNServer management console to get correct URL of your repositories.

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

Q: Does VisualSVN Server support svn:// protocol?

A: Not, it doesn't. VisualSVN Server provides Apache based Subversion server and is accessible over

http:// or https:// protocols only.

Q: Does VisualSVN Server support secure connections?

A: Yes, it does. VisualSVN Server supports connection over or https:// protocol. You should choosehttps:// protocol support during the installation process of VisualSVN Server.
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.advanced.props.html#svn.advanced.props.special.ignorehttp://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.advanced.props.html#svn.advanced.props.special.ignore


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

A: 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.

Q: Is it possible to change the repository path after installation?

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

Q: What is the recommended way to backup VisualSVN Server?

A: You can backup your repositories using svnadmin hotcopy Subversioncommand. 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 righthere in your repositories folder (C:\Repositories by default).

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

A: Standard command line binaries by default are installed in C:\Program Files\VisualSVNServer\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.

Q: Is there a 64-bit version of VisualSVN Server?

A: There is no strong necessity in 64-bit version of VisualSVN Server. 32-bit version should work correctlyon 64-bit platforms without any limitations.
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.reposadmin.maint.html#svn.reposadmin.maint.backuphttp://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.reposadmin.maint.html#svn.reposadmin.maint.backuphttp://silmor.de/49


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subversion integration for visual studio

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