Professional Team Foundation Server

12.3. Converting from Other Version Control Systems

One of the critical areas that you need to consider is how you are going to move your data from your current version control system to Team Foundation Server. Obviously, you want to retain as much history and information as you can from your old system, while converting the necessary pieces into the new Team Foundation Version Control terminology, such as changesets. Using the Team Foundation Server Object Model, you could create your own conversion utility. That is one option. If you are using a custom-built version control system right now, that is probably your only option.

However, if you are using one of the major third-party tools now on the market, such as CVS, Subversion, or Visual SourceSafe, then you have another option. Microsoft provides free with Team Foundation Server a conversion tool called VSSConverter, which allows you to convert Visual SourceSafe information into Team Foundation Version Control. And third-party companies, such as ComponentSoftware (.componentsoftware.com) are providing utilities to convert Subversion, CVS, and several other version control systems, including Visual SourceSafe.

In this section, you learn how to convert your Visual SourceSafe project, using the free VSSConverter tool provided with Team Foundation Server. You learn about some of the pros and cons of converting using this tool. Next, you look at converting the same Visual SourceSafe database using the CS-Converter tool provided ...