You can graphically access Subversion via Tortoise SVN, which is an Explorer Shell Extension that provides access to most of Subversion’s command-line interface through Explorer Context menus and overlay icons for files under source control. Subversion is file based and keeps its repository in a simple directory structure that you can copy and back up easily. It’s fast and efficient, small and easy to install and because it’s open source-it’s also free. It is widely used by many open source projects and increasingly by many large development teams in general. Subversion is an open source control repository tool. This article isn’t meant to be a comprehensive tutorial on Subversion, but rather a quick, what-you-need-to-know, step-by-step guide to the essential tools to install and configure to get up and running. Subversion typically runs as a Service either using TCP/IP or HTTP, the latter of which requires Apache. This article describes the steps to install and configure the Subversion source control tool and walks you through the basic steps required to set up local Visual Studio projects using Tortoise SVN.

This article describes all you need to know to get started with Subversion and Tortoise SVN for Visual Studio projects. I recently got acquainted with the open source Subversion and Tortoise SVN tools and, for the first time, feel that this is source control that I can live with comfortably. It can help you manage your application more efficiently and make sure that your project is backed up and can be rolled back to any revision on the file or project level. Source control is an important aspect in software development even if you are not doing team development.

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