Switching between TFS and Sourcesafe as your sourcecode control

So you have installed VS 2005 on your workstation, and Team Foundation Server (TFS) on your server You are developing all of your new applications using .Net 3.0, VS 2005. You are managing the projects using TFS for workitems, and your sourcecode control.

But what about your legacy applications? It would be nice to be able to use TFS as the sourcecode control for your .Net 1.1 applications developed using VS.Net 2003. This is possible after you install the (MS SourceCode Control Integration) MSSCCI provider. This tool changes your default sourcecode control provider to TFS, and installs the necessary compnents to connect VS.Net 2003 to the TFS courcecode control. the MSSCCI provider can be downloaded from here.

This is all fine if you are ready to make a clean break for it and move all of your legacy applications to TFS sourcecode control at once. But this is not always possible. At this point, you will have no easy way to return to using Sourcesafe as your sourcecode control in your VS.Net 2003 IDE. It should be noted that the MSSCCI provider has no impact on the VS 2005 IDE.

You can download and install the Sourcecode Control Stwitcher (SCC) to allow switching between Sourcesafe, and TFS as your sourcecode control. This tool installs itself into the system tray. You switch between providers using the pop up menu. I would recommend selecting the Autostart option after install by clicking on the SCC icon in the system tray, and clicking the Autostart option so that it is ticked. This will save you having to run the SCC tool each time you restart your workstation.

Bear in mind that this setting is a machine wide setting. You cannot have one instance of VS.Net 2003 pointed to TFS and another instance of VS.Net 2003. pointed to Sourcesafe. You will have to use SCC to select the sourcecode control provider of your choice, and then start VS.Net 2003.