Prepare to upgrade from Visual SourceSafe

Before you begin the upgrade process from Visual SourceSafe (VSS) to Team Foundation Server (TFS), plan ahead and prepare your computers and databases to improve the outcome and avoid serious problems.

Note

If your Visual SourceSafe database is a version earlier than Visual SourceSafe 6.0, you must first upgrade it to Visual SourceSafe 2005. Then you can upgrade your data into TFS. This process is explained below.

Prepare to upgrade

1. Make sure you have the required permissions

2. Schedule the upgrade with your team

3. Provide a database for upgrade tool to use

4. Prepare your instance of Team Foundation Server

5. Copy and prepare your Visual SourceSafe database

6. (Optional) truncate the history of items

7. Prepare the upgrade computer

Make sure you have the required permissions

To upgrade from VSS to TFS, you must have the following permissions:

• In the VSS database that contains the data that you want to upgrade, you must know the password of the Admin account.

• On the temporary database that the upgrade tool uses, you must be a SQL Administrator or have the CREATE ANY DATABASE permission.

• On your Team Foundation server, you must be a member of the Team Foundation Administrators security group. See Permission reference for Team Foundation Server.

• On the upgrade computer—the computer that contains the copy of the VSS database that you are upgrading—you must be a member of the Administrators group.

Schedule the upgrade with your team

Try to schedule the upgrade when your team does not require access to the VSS database that you are upgrading. If you have lots of data, a large team, or if you have worked on the projects for a long time, you should allow time to prepare and upgrade your data.

Important

Inform your team members when the upgrade process will occur, and advise them to check in all files before the process begins.

Provide a database for the upgrade tool to use

The upgrade tools require a database—either SQL Server Express or SQL Server—to use for temporary storage. After the upgrade process is complete, the database is never used again.

Tip

By default, when you install Team Foundation Server Express, SQL Server Express is installed, and you are automatically given the required CREATE ANY DATABASE permission.

Prepare your instance of Team Foundation Server

Prepare the upgrade computer by following these steps:

1. Make sure that the data tier for TFS has enough storage space available. Typically, you will need about two times the data size of the projects in the VSS database that you are upgrading, but the exact amount of storage space depends on the following factors:

   • The size of the VSS database you are upgrading.

   • The number of actions to be upgraded.

2. The upgrade tools require that the destination team projects already exist on your Team Foundation server before the upgrade process starts. If you do not yet have the team project collection or the team project into which you want to port your upgraded VSS data, you must create them. See Create a team project.

   We recommend that you use a new team project that you have not yet begun using. You can upgrade your data into a team project that you are already using. However, if the path to any of your VSS items overlaps with an existing version control path, the upgrade process will fail.

Copy and prepare your Visual SourceSafe database

Copy and prepare your VSS database by following these steps:

1. Check in files.   Ideally, all files in your VSS database should be checked in. If this is not possible, as many files as possible should be checked in before you upgrade.

2. Remove access to the Visual SourceSafe projects.   You should be the only person who has access to the Visual SourceSafe projects that you are upgrading.

3. Copy the database.   Follow the instructions on this page of the Microsoft Web site: How To Back Up a Visual SourceSafe Database.

4. Upgrade the copy of your database.    If your Visual SourceSafe database is a version earlier than Visual SourceSafe 6.0, upgrade it to Visual SourceSafe 2005 by using the Visual SourceSafe DDUPD Utility.

5. Scan for and fix data integrity issues in the copy of your database.

   Important

   You must use the Visual SourceSafe ANALYZE utility to locate and fix data integrity issues in the database. For more information about how to use this tool, see the following pages on the Microsoft Web site: ANALYZE Utility and How to Detect and Fix Database Corruption Errors in Visual SourceSafe.

(Optional) Truncate the history of items

If you do not need all the history data, you can save time when you upgrade from Visual SourceSafe and preserve only the history after a specific date. This is called truncating the history. To do this, use the Archive feature in VSS.

Tip

If you want to exclude all historical data and you plan to use the VSS Upgrade Wizard, you can skip this section.

Warning

Archiving permanently removes the version history from the VSS database. Therefore, make sure that you perform this procedure on a copy of the VSS database instead of the database that is in service.

You can specify the time stamp before which you want to truncate the history by using any of the following values:

• Label

• Version of a folder

• Date

For more information about how to archive in Visual SourceSafe, see Visual SourceSafe Archive Databases.

Note

The Visual SourceSafe Archive feature has a limitation of 2 gigabytes (GB) on the size of the archive file. If an error occurs while you are archiving, try to archive smaller projects separately.

Prepare the upgrade computer

Log on and prepare the computer on which you will perform the upgrade:

1. Make sure the computer is running one of the following operating systems:

   • Windows 8

   • Windows Server 2012

   • Windows 7

   • Windows Server 2008 R2

2. Install the Visual SourceSafe upgrade tools.

3. Make sure that the computer has sufficient free disk space to complete the upgrade process. To estimate how much disk space is required, total the following items:

   • 5 GB for the upgrade tools to create temporary files and to generate log files.

   • Two times the size of the projects in the Visual SourceSafe database that you will upgrade.

4. Make sure that you have followed the steps in Copy and Prepare Your Visual SourceSafe Database earlier in this topic.

5. Copy the VSS database to a folder on the upgrade computer.

   Note

   If you use file sharing to enable the upgrade computer to access the data in the VSS database instead of copying the database, you must provide Read and Modify access to the account that you use to log on to the upgrade computer. This approach is not recommended because it may prolong the upgrade process.

   Warning

   Regardless of how you set up your upgrade computer to access your VSS database, make sure that you run the upgrade process on a copy of the database and not the database that is in service. This approach helps protect your data.

Next step

Choose one of the following processes:

• Upgrade from Visual SourceSafe using the wizard In most cases, you should use the VSS Upgrade Wizard. Advantages include:

  • A fast and easy-to-use step-by-step graphical interface.

  • Support for upgrading into a team project on either an on-premises Team Foundation Server or on Visual Studio Online.

• Upgrade from Visual SourceSafe using the VSSUpgrade command-prompt tool You can use the VssUpgrade command-prompt tool to upgrade to an on-premises Team Foundation server:

  • Using a script to upgrade your data.

  • While taking advantage of VssUpgrade features that are not available when using the wizard.