How To Recover Disk Space in Visual SourceSafe (153500)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 16-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 16-bit, for Windows 5.0
  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 16-bit, for Windows 6.0
  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe for Windows 5.0
  • Microsoft Visual SourceSafe for Windows 6.0
This article was previously published under Q153500

SUMMARY

When a file is deleted in Visual SourceSafe, the file is still held in the SourceSafe database; it is simply marked for deletion. The files marked for deletion are still taking up space on the disk and are still available to be recovered.

MORE INFORMATION

There are several ways to recover disk space in Visual SourceSafe:

  • Select the Destroy Permanently check box when deleting a file to completely remove it from the database.
  • Use the Visual SourceSafe Purge command from the Command window or from within Visual SourceSafe Explorer.
  • Use Analyze.exe with the -c and -d switches. Do not use these switches together. Run analyze twice, once with each switch . However, use this with extreme caution. Note that this applies to versions of Analyze.exe dated 1/9/96 or later. If you have an earlier version, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base for further information:

    190881 SAMPLE: Analyze6.exe Utility for Visual SourceSafe

Step-by-Step Example

Delete with the Destroy Permanently option:

  1. In SourceSafe Explorer, select the desired file or project, and press the DELETE key.
  2. Select the Destroy Permanently check box, and click OK. The file or project is no longer recoverable.
Purge option:

  1. In SourceSafe Explorer, right-click the Project, and select the Properties option.
  2. Select the Deleted Items tab. If any files are deleted in that project, the Purge button will be available.
Analyze -C option:

  1. First and foremost, back up the database. At the command line, change to the \win32 directory where ANALYZE.EXE resides.
  2. Type Analyze <path to data directory> -C at the command line and allow some time for this to run.
NOTE: You may also want to run analyze with the -d switch as suggested in the Knowledge Base Article 190881.

NOTE: Be sure that there is plenty of free hard disk space, back up, and allow a lot of time with this method.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:7/1/2004
Keywords:kbhowto KB153500
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