Before you can install and use VSS on a user's computer (client installation), you, as the VSS administrator, must first install the source code control database maintained by VSS on a drive that is accessible to all VSS users (server installation).
The most versatile method of working with VSS is to perform a server installation to a network drive, and then a client installation on each workstation. The server setup is all that is actually required; but having only a server setup can generate large amounts of network traffic, which sometimes results in impaired performance. To avoid large volumes of network traffic, perform a client installation on every workstation in addition to the server installation(s).
The setup program detects the platform from which you are installing (Intel or Alpha, for example) and installs only the binaries (files) required for that platform. Thus, if you plan to use VSS in a mixed-platform environment (Alpha and Intel computers, all using the same VSS database, for example), you must do a server installation once from each different kind of platform in your environment and point to the same server location. You will then have all the binaries your clients need.
Note Installing binaries will not overwrite any existing data you have.
For information on how to install VSS, refer to: