Installing and Setting Up Source Control for Visual InterDev

Microsoft Corporation

June 1998

You can use Microsoft® Visual SourceSafe™ (VSS) with your Microsoft Visual InterDev™ project to keep track of changes to your files. To install Visual SourceSafe and set it up to work with Visual InterDev, you need to complete several procedures using a couple of different interfaces.

The following table outlines the main tasks needed to set up source control with Visual InterDev. The steps for each of these tasks are detailed in the sections under "For more information," which appear later in this paper.

Table 1. Steps to set up source control in Visual InterDev

Installing Visual SourceSafe

When installing Visual SourceSafe, be sure to install the Visual SourceSafe server on the same computer as the Web server and make sure the option for integration with other visual products is selected. Without that option set, Visual SourceSafe runs independently and does not recognize the commands used by Visual InterDev.

Installing on a Web Server

The following procedure assumes you have Microsoft® Internet Information Server (IIS) and FrontPage® Server Extensions already installed on your Web server.

To install Visual SourceSafe on a Web server

1. Run the Visual SourceSafe setup program.
   
   
2. In the Setup wizard, choose Custom and select at least the following components:
   1. Create SourceSafe Database
      
      
   2. Administrative Programs
      
      
   3. Enable Visual Studio Integration
4. If you are running Windows® 95 and Personal Web Server, download and install the Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM). (If you need to download DCOM, go to the http://www.microsoft.com/ and search for "DCOM.")

Note   If the server machine is a Windows 95 computer, make sure that someone remains logged into Windows 95. Often users of the server end their work by using the shutdown option "Close all programs and log on as another user." This option leaves the server at the login prompt and the integration between Visual SourceSafe and Visual InterDev does not work when there is no one logged onto the server.

Installing on a Separate Server

If you want the Visual SourceSafe database to reside on a different server than your Web server, you need to specify additional settings. The following procedure assumes you already have your Web server installed.

To install Visual SourceSafe on a separate server

1. On the machine you want to use for the Visual SourceSafe Database, run the Visual SourceSafe setup program.
   
   
2. In the Setup wizard, choose Custom and select at least the following components:
   3. Create SourceSafe Database
      
      
   4. Administrative Programs
      
      
   5. Enable Visual Studio Integration
6. Open User Manager For Domains and add the anonymous account from the machine running Internet Information Server as a user.

   Note   Be sure to give the anonymous account the same password as on the Internet Information Server machine and make sure it has log on locally permissions. If you ever change the password on one machine, you need to change the password for both machines to keep them the same.

7. On the Web server, open the Property window for the WWW service and set the following Password Authentication properties.
   8. Allow Anonymous selected
      
      
   9. Basic (Clear Text) selected
      
      
   10. Windows NT Challenge/Response clear

You need to make sure the passwords and permissions for the anonymous accounts on both machines are the same, otherwise attempts to use source control will generate errors. For more information about common errors, see "Related Error Messages" in the section "Troubleshooting Source Control."

Allowing Multiple Check Outs

Visual SourceSafe provides two ways to control source files.

1. Exclusive Check Out. The default option, which allows only one user to check out a file at a time.
   
   
2. Multiple Check Outs. An option that allows more than one person to check out the same file at the same time. For information about resolving conflicts resulting from multiple check outs, see the Visual SourceSafe documentation.

If you want to enable multiple check outs, you need administrator privileges to the Visual SourceSafe Administrator on your server.

To enable multiple check outs for a Visual SourceSafe project

1. In Visual SourceSafe Administrator, from the Tools menu, choose Options.
   
   
2. On the General tab, choose Allow multiple check outs.
   
   
3. Click OK.

Any of the files can be checked out and worked on simultaneously. After one person has checked the file back in, others can merge their changes using the Visual SourceSafe merge options available when they check in the file.

Setting Permissions

After you've installed Visual SourceSafe on a Web server, you must grant read/write permissions to all users whom you want to be able to author files using Visual InterDev or FrontPage.

To grant permissions to a user

1. Run the Visual SourceSafe Administrator application. This application should appear in the Programs section of the Start menu. If it doesn't, check that you installed all of the components listed above.
   
   
2. Select the Users menu and then choose Add User.
   
   
3. Enter the user's name and, if desired, leave the Password box blank. Make sure the Read-Only option is not selected.

   Note   If you assign a password, the user has an additional login step to complete when using the project.

In addition to granting read/write permissions to specific users, if you have installed Visual SourceSafe on a Windows NT server, you must also add permissions for the anonymous user account.

To add permissions for the anonymous user account

1. On the server, open Internet Information Manager.
   
   
2. In the Microsoft Management Console, choose Internet Information Server and then select the computer that is running the Visual SourceSafe Administrator.
   
   
3. Select Default Web Site and open its properties dialog box.
   
   
4. On the Directory Security tab, choose Edit to change the Authentication Methods.
   
   
5. In the Anonymous User Account dialog box, copy the user name.

   Note   By default, this property setting is IUSR_machinename, where machinename is the name of the server where you have installed the Visual SourceSafe Administrator.

6. In the Visual SourceSafe Administrator application, create a user account for the anonymous user by choosing Add User from the Users menu and pasting in the value of the UserName property. Leave the Password box blank and make sure that the Read-Only option is not selected.

When Visual SourceSafe tracks changes, it uses the operating system to identify and record who made the changes.

Certain operating systems can only recognize and record the anonymous user name for changes. If your Web server is running Windows 95, or Windows NT using the File Allocation Tables (FAT) file system, then all files checked out through Visual SourceSafe will always be checked out to the same user account. This user account might not represent the user performing the operation.

On a Windows NT FAT system, the anonymous user account performs all source control operations on the server. On a Windows 95 system, the user account specified when Windows 95 was started performs all source control operations on the server.

Enabling Source Control

Once you've installed and set up Visual SourceSafe, you can enable source control for your Web pages using any Web project that references those pages. Only one developer needs to enable source control for the application.

To enable source control for Web pages

1. In Visual InterDev, open or create a Web project that references the Web pages you want to place under source control.
   
   
2. In the Project Explorer, select the project you want to use with source control.
   
   
3. From the Project menu, select Source Control, and choose Add to Source Control.
   
   
4. In the Enable Source Control dialog box, verify that the project name is the one you want for the Source Control Project, and then click OK.

   Note   It's recommended that you use a different name than that of the Visual InterDev project such as $/MyWebApplication_Web. The name must be preceded by the dollar sign ($) and forward slash (/).

5. After a developer has enabled source control for Web pages, other developers with open projects that reference the Web pages must either refresh or reopen their Web projects for source control to take effect on their projects.

If you do not know whether Web pages have source control enabled, you can check the property sheet for your project that references those Web pages.

To determine whether source control has been enabled for Web pages

3. Open the properties for a project and read the Source Control area on the Web Server tab.

You can also disable source control for Web pages from any Web project that references those Web pages.

To disable source control for Web pages

1. Open or create a new Web project that references the Web pages you want to remove from source control.
   
   
2. In the Project Explorer, select the project you want to remove from source control.
   
   
3. From the Project menu, select Source Control, and then choose Remove from Source Control.

When you disable source control for Web pages, the Visual SourceSafe project created when you first enabled source control for those Web pages remains on the Visual SourceSafe server. This means you can reenable source control and choose that Visual SourceSafe project for your Web pages. This may cause some unexpected results, however.

For example, if you disable source control, then delete files from the Web project, then reenable source control, the files that you deleted will show up in your Web project again. This happens because the files were deleted outside of source control and so the original Visual SourceSafe project still shows them as part of the project. You can remove the Visual SourceSafe project by deleting it from within Visual SourceSafe Explorer.

Troubleshooting Source Control

If you experience difficulty in using Visual InterDev with Visual SourceSafe, you may need to make changes outside of Visual InterDev in the applications that support Visual InterDev. You can check the following items to resolve issues with enabling and using Visual InterDev with Visual SourceSafe.

4. Proper Software Installation
   
   
5. Appropriate Login and Permissions
   
   
6. Visual SourceSafe Connection
   
   
7. Related Error Messages

Proper Software Installation

8. On your Web server, check that you have installed the FrontPage Server Extensions, Active Server Pages, and Visual SourceSafe.
   
   
9. If Visual SourceSafe was installed using the Typical or Client installations, you need to reinstall and use the "Custom" or "Server" installation, and select the option to "Enable Visual Studio Integration."

Appropriate Login and Permissions

10. On your local computer, make sure that you are logged in as yourself, at your client machine. If someone else has used your computer and doesn't have the same permissions as you, you may be denied permissions. To solve the problem, log in as yourself to get appropriate access to files.
    
    
11. In the Visual SourceSafe Administrator, make sure that you are entered as a valid user. Also, make sure your server's anonymous user is in the user list. By default, the anonymous user name is IUSR_machinename. If you don't know your computer's anonymous user name, you can find it in the Internet Information Server configuration in the properties for the WWW service.
    
    
12. In the Internet Information Server Manager, make sure that either Basic authentication or NT Challenge/Response is enabled. If the No Authentication option is selected, access is not available to modify projects.

Visual SourceSafe Connection

13. If you have Visual SourceSafe installed on your local computer in addition to the Web server, make sure the LAN connection between your computer and the server is working and that the appropriate permissions are set.

    You do not need Visual SourceSafe on your local computer; you only need Visual InterDev. If you want to use the Visual SourceSafe Explorer to work with your Web files directly in the VSS database, you can install the Visual SourceSafe client on your local computer.

    For more information about installing and setting up a Visual SourceSafe database, see "How to Install VSS" in the Visual SourceSafe documentation.

If Visual InterDev doesn't recognize that Visual SourceSafe is installed on the server, try these tips.

14. When installing Visual SourceSafe, make sure that the "Enable Integration" option was enabled. By default, it is not enabled when you choose Client installation. Choose Server or Custom installation in order to select this option.
    
    
15. Make sure that you are entered in the Visual SourceSafe user list, using Visual SourceSafe Administrator. On Windows NT servers, also make sure that the IIS anonymous user (IUSR_machinename) is in the list.
    
    
16. Check the log file to see which Visual SourceSafe error FrontPage is reporting. It can be found at C:\Frontpg.log on the server (assuming Windows is installed on C:\).

Related Error Messages

The Windows NT Event Viewer on the IIS server often contains information that can help locate the cause of a problem if integration is not working. These log errors usually come in pairs, the topmost of which usually contains an error number and the one below it a short description of the error.

Although errors might differ depending on how the components are configured, the table below shows commonly encountered errors and possible solutions.

Table 2. Error messages and solutions

If you want more information about Visual SourceSafe, visit the Visual SourceSafe site at http://msdn.microsoft.com/ssafe/.