Microsoft KB Archive/133017

= PRB: Branching Files in SourceSafe Causes Lost Disk Space =

Article ID: 133017

Article Last Modified on 5/7/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 5.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 6.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft SourceSafe
 * Microsoft SourceSafe
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 3.04
 * Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 3.1 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft SourceSafe
 * Microsoft SourceSafe
 * Microsoft SourceSafe
 * Microsoft SourceSafe

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This article was previously published under Q133017



SYMPTOMS
Destroying projects and/or files from SourceSafe does not free disk space in SS\DATA subdirectories.



CAUSE
Once a file is branched in SourceSafe, there are four associated files that are not deleted from the disk at this point. The reason this occurs is so the reference between the branch and original file is maintained. There is no way to undo this behavior after the branching has occurred.



RESOLUTION
Use the branching sparingly.

One common practice is to use share and branch to perform a file copy. A better alternative is to share the file or project and destroy the old copy. This preserves the history and allow disk space to be recovered at a later time.

When the history is not needed, get the desired version to a disk location and add the files to the desired project. This gets a clean copy and preserves the ability to recover the disk space at a later time.

Keywords: kbprb KB133017

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