4/2011 is? The end of mainstream/free support for SourceSafe… Use this as a kick-in-the-butt to move to a modern version control solution.

MSDN UK Team blog - End of support for Visual SourceSafe

“Don’t forget that mainstream support for Microsoft Visual SourceSafe ends in April 2011. After this date you’ll still be able to access extended (paid for) support, as detailed in this Microsoft Support Lifecycle blog post.

There’s also a wealth of Visual SourceSafe information at your fingertips on MSDN, and if you’d like to find out about migrating from Visual SourceSafe to Team Foundation Server, register for our LiveMeeting on 8th February.” [GD: Post leached in full]

I know many of you are going to roll your eyes at this, laugh and say, “BFD, NO one uses that any more do they?” And then there’s going to be many of you, probably business/corporate/etc. dev’s, who secretly say, “Oh, I guess we better finally move off of SourceSafe…”

I know you’re out there. I know that VSS has worked well enough for you to get the job done. Well enough that you couldn’t convince Management/Business Owners/etc. to invest the time to migrate to a modern version control system.

NOW is your chance! Use the end of free VSS support as the lever, ammo, power-up, whatever to migrate off it.

You can do it. It might be painful moving to a new version control system, but if you’re still on VSS, after moving any modern system you’ll probably wonder why you waited so long. VSS has it’s day in the sun, but that day is over… It’s time to join the

You say, “but I’m still supporting VB6 code!” (sigh… Yeah, me too). So? TFS works great for VB6 code (been there, done that and loving using TFS to host my VB6 code base).

Doesn’t matter what version control system you decide on, as long as it’s “modern”. TFS, SVN, a DVCS, like GIT, doesn’t really matter. Look around, play around, but whatever one you finally pick, I think you, and Management/Business owners/etc. will happier in the end. (You’ll get real/true Branching and Merging… ZOMG… lol  ;)