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Q167290: HOWTO: Enable Visual SourceSafe Locking

Article: Q167290
Product(s): Microsoft SourceSafe
Version(s): 
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbSSafe400 kbSSafe500 kbSSafe600
Last Modified: 04-MAY-2001

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Visual SourceSafe for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0 
- Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 16-bit, for Windows, version 4.0 
- Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0 
- Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 16-bit, for Windows, version 4.0a 
- Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0a 
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SUMMARY
=======

Normally, Visual SourceSafe allows the Operating System to handle the file
locking. However, if there is a lot of network traffic or high latency, file
errors can occur. You can also use the Visual SourceSafe application to handle
file locking. When Visual SourceSafe locking is enabled, Visual SourceSafe
handles all of the file locking for itself.

MORE INFORMATION
================

You can use the Visual SourceSafe program called TESTLOCK to check to see if you
need to enable Visual SourceSafe locking. TESTLOCK is located in the Dos and
Win32 directories under the Visual SourceSafe directory on the server.

After you start TESTLOCK on multiple computers, it will tell you whether it is
safe to use native locking. To run TESTLOCK you must give it a parameter of a
shared directory on a server or some other computer, however, all the machines
that will run TESTLOCK must have full access to the shared location. The command
might look like the following:

  TESTLOCK F:\VSS\TEMP

If TESTLOCK reports that you must enable Visual SourceSafe locking, you may do so
by adding the following to your Visual SourceSafe database's Srcsafe.ini file:

  Lock_Mode=Lockfile

Make sure that there is a LOCKS directory in the DATA subdirectory and have all
the Visual SourceSafe users restart Visual SourceSafe after you make the
change.

It is recommended that if you are using Macintosh and Unix clients and/or servers
that you enable Visual SourceSafe locking.

REFERENCES
==========

For more information about TESTLOCK please refer to page 178 of the Visual
SourceSafe 4.0 manual, page 221 of the Visual SourceSafe 5.0 manual, or search
for TESTLOCK.EXE in the online documentation.

Additional query words:

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Keywords          : kbSSafe400 kbSSafe500 kbSSafe600 
Technology        : kbSSafeSearch kbAudDeveloper kbSSafe600 kbSSafe400 kbSSafe400a kbSSafe500 kbSSafe16bitSearch kbSSafe32bitSearch
Issue type        : kbhowto

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