INFO: Limitations of PVCS_SS.exe

ID: Q231412

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 32-bit, for Windows versions 5.0, 6.0

SUMMARY

There are two potential problems using the PVCS_SS conversion utility:

The utility does not work on PVCS databases later than version 5.2.1 that have Long File Names (LFNs). LFN's are file names that are longer than the 8.3 convention or contain spaces

The utility does not work when converting to a Visual Source Safe (VSS) 6.0 database format.

MORE INFORMATION

There is no consistent error that is returned when the conversion fails. Among the error messages/problems that have been reported are:

"Invalid / corrupted log file"

An unreadable series of binary characters

"PVCS Log File May be Corrupt"

In this case the possible workarounds are:

Convert the PVCS database to an earlier version

Rename all LFN's in the PVCS database

Manually convert the database by recursively getting all file versions and adding the versions to VSS

If the utility returns the following error:

Incompatible database version

To resolve this, try running DDUPD -undo on the target database. If the conversion still fails, you need to create a new VSS database, choosing not to create it in the new database format.

REFERENCES

For additional information about Visual SourceSafe, please see the following article(s) in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q140362 PVCS_SS Does Not Work with PVCS for Windows NT

Q153285 Will VSS 5.0 Be Able to Read a VSS 6.0 Database?

Q216115 HOWTO: Set Up Multiple Databases in Visual SourceSafe 6.0

Additional query words: pvcs conversion


Keywords          : kbSSafe500 kbSSafe600 kbGrpSSafe 
Version           : WINDOWS:5.0,6.0
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbinfo

Last Reviewed: July 20, 1999