VSS's default installation, while simple to create and use, is not necessarily optimized for performance. Therefore, VSS provides two ways you can customize your system to improve performance:
To Optimize Performance in VSS
Set the following variables in the SS.INI or SRCSAFE.INI file:
Tells VSS not to ignore end-of-line differences, which speeds up the comparison. By default, VSS ignores all end-of-line differences, which slows the algorithm significantly.
Disables the selection of a project as you use the mouse or arrow keys to move through the project list. If you set this initialization variable to No, you must use the ENTER key or double-click to set your current project.
General Optimizations
You can set the following options on the Local Files tab and the General tab in the Options dialog box on the Tools menu:
Useful if you use keyword expansion. Clearing this check box may increase VSS's speed, as it tells VSS not to get a file after checkin.
Controls how VSS determines if you already have the latest copy of a file in your working folder. The Time setting sometimes does not behave as you expect when you try to get earlier versions. A solution is to occasionally delete your local copy to force a Get operation to occur.
Specifies where you store temporary files. The default setting is to store temporary files on the server, but your administrator can also set the Temp_Path variable in your SS.INI file to a local folder which speeds up operations like viewing files. For example:
Temp_Path = c:\windows\temp
Ask your VSS administrator to verify the following variable in the SRCSAFE.INI file:
This is the default setting for this SRCSAFE.INI variable. Setting this initialization variable to Native speeds up almost every VSS operation.
Important: This variable must be set by the VSS administrator.
Features You Can Disable to Improve Performance
Your VSS administrator can disable any of the following to optimize the speed of many VSS commands: