Source Control for Visual Studio

Without leaving your development environment, you can manage your individual and team projects easily using the source control features of Microsoft Visual Studio. Visual Studio source control allows you to:

• Manage database access. Visual Studio source control supports both shared and exclusive file access, and file merging mechanisms.

• Retrieve successive versions of source-controlled items. Most source control packages hosted by Visual Studio store data that distinguishes one version of a source-controlled item from another.

• Maintain detailed historical information on source-controlled items. Many source control packages provide mechanisms for storing and retrieving item history, for example, creation date and time.

• Collaborate across projects and solutions. File sharing makes it possible for multiple projects and solutions to share source-controlled items. Changes to a shared item are reflected in all the projects and solutions.

• Automate frequently repeated source control operations. For example, a source control package hosted by Visual Studio might define a command line interface that supports the key features of source control. You can use this interface in batch files to automate the source control tasks that you perform regularly.

• Recover from accidental deletions. Visual Studio source control supports restoration of the latest checked-in file version.

• Conserve disk space on both the source control package and the associated server.

In This Section

• Introducing Source Control
  Provides an introduction to source control in Visual Studio.

• Performing Source Control Tasks
  Describes procedures for users who use source control to perform daily tasks.

• Source Control User Interface Reference
  Provides technical information about the generic dialog boxes supported by source control for Visual Studio.