As we developed DeliverPoint, we leveraged the source control and bug tracking that are part of Visual Studio Team System. Lately, as I’ve been working on consulting projects, I’ve missed that ability to branch code and revert changes as needed. I’ve been getting by with copying files to/from virtual images and client servers, but today I got fed up!

VisualSVN Server is a free SVN server, and combined with the VisualSVN Personal license, I now have my familiar security blanket available. I created the source repositories on my host operating system, and while working on the guest systems, it is just as if I’m working on a remote SVN server.

Even though my dev team has one person, source control pays large dividends. I don’t need to merge changes from multiple developers. Branching the trunk for a major upgrade (which takes a while with only one dev) and merging incremental changes as they are tested and installed makes my life much easier.

If you are writing code w/o source control, stop right now! Go get VisualSVN. It is easy to install, they provide excellent online documentation and the Visual Studio integration is top notch.