DETAILS

1. Run vss analyze on your VSS database prior to the conversion. The analyze utility scans a VSS database for integrity problems, displays them, and if set to do so, fixes them.


2. The converter will run much faster if on the same machine as SourceSafe. The Perforce Server can be put on a separate machine without suffering adverse performance. However, it makes sense to run Perforce on the same machine as the VSS instance if there is adequate disk space and it's the same platform.


3. In the config file, it's a good idea to set the skip_ss_get_errors to yes.


4. VSS users do not need to match Perforce users. The two groups of users are unrelated.
   


5. If the script hangs, there is a good chance that ss.exe is just waiting for the user to enter a password. Password prompting needs to be turned off for the script to work. Alternatively, set a password in the VSS environment.
   
   For Visual Source Safe command line use, a few environment variables need to be set.
   • ssdir needs to point to the Source Safe database being read from
   • ssuser needs to be set to a valid user account under Source Safe
   • sspwd needs to be set to the password for that account if there is one.
   
   
6. If you have any VSS user names with a spaces in them, you must remove or replace them. For example: change "User Name" to "UserName" or "User_Name". User names in Perforce are not allowed to include spaces. You may choose to have this automatically done by the script. In readhist.pl just below where you see:
   

    sub parse_user_and_timestamp 
   { 
   $_=shift;     

   add the line (for every single user with spaces):
   

    s/User: User Name/User: UserName/