How to: Get an Item to Your Working Folder

Article
05/01/2007

The Visual SourceSafe Explorer Get Latest Version command on the Versions menu retrieves the most recent version of a file, a group of files, or an entire project from the database and creates read-only copies for viewing or compiling in your working folder. Getting a file does not replace the file copy that you currently have checked out in your working folder, unless you set the Replace option in the Get dialog box. You must have at least the Read project right to use the Get Latest Version command.

Using the Get Latest Version command has four possible outcomes:

When the file you are retrieving is not already in your working folder, Visual SourceSafe simply retrieves the file and places it in the working folder.
When the file in your working folder is identical to the file you are retrieving, Visual SourceSafe does not retrieve or modify the file in any way.
When the file in your working folder is different from the Visual SourceSafe master copy, and your local copy is read-only, Visual SourceSafe replaces your local copy.
When the file in your working folder is not read-only, Visual SourceSafe assumes that you have the file checked out, and does not replace the file. You can change the way Visual SourceSafe behaves in this case by setting the Replace Writable option in the Local Files tab of the SourceSafe Options dialog box. If you are using the Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (Internet) provider and get a checked out file, the provider performs an automatic merge of your file with the file in the store.

Visual SourceSafe also allows you to retrieve an earlier version of a file by enabling a Get command in the History of <name> dialog box. Retrieval in this case is sometimes called a "get by label" operation. It gets the file version that was active at the time the history version was created by the database.

Note

If a file is pinned, the pinned version is retrieved by this type of get operation. For more information, see Version Control.

To get the latest version of a file or project:

In Visual SourceSafe, select the Visual SourceSafe file(s) or project to retrieve.
On the Versions menu, click Get Latest Version.
In the Get dialog box, use the To box to specify a folder to which Visual SourceSafe should get the selected items. By default, the items are copied to your working folder.
If you are retrieving a project, you can make the get operation recursive by selecting the Recursive check box. Visual SourceSafe will retrieve the project and all subprojects.
If you have selected the Recursive check box, use the Build tree option for a project-level get operation to override the working folders for subprojects.
Select the Make writable check box if you want to remove the read-only attribute from the items after retrieval.
Click Advanced. You can use the Replace writable option to specify the effect of the get operation on the writable files in your working folder. You can use the Set file time box to change the date/time stamp assigned to the get operation.
Click OK to complete the get operation.

To get a version by label:

Make sure that you have set a working folder in Visual SourceSafe Explorer. See How to: Set the Working Folder.
Ensure that you have set the history options. See How to: View History.
Select the project that contains the file to retrieve.
On the Tools menu, click Show History.
In the History Options dialog box, select the version of the file to retrieve and click OK.
In the History of <name> dialog box, click Get to retrieve the version of the file that you have chosen.
In the Get dialog box, make any additional entries needed and click OK to retrieve the file.

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How to: Get an Item to Your Working Folder

To get the latest version of a file or project:

To get a version by label:

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