CVS on Windows 95/NT

CVS is a version control system, which allows you to keep old versions of files (usually source code), keep a log of who, when, and why changes occurred, etc., like RCS or SCCS.

There are two ways to run CVS on Windows 95/NT. The first is as a client, talking to a CVS server on a unix box. This is the recommended setup and is commonly used.

The second way is known as "local" or "non-client/server" CVS. This lets you run CVS if you have only Windows machines. However, due to issues (a) with local CVS on Windows, and (b) with the suitability of Windows as a server operating system in general, we'd generally recommend this more to try out CVS and get a feel for it, than for production use.

This page primarily concerns Windows 95/NT running on the x86 processor family found in most Windows machines. For Windows NT running on other processors, see our page on CVS on other operating sytems.

Where to get CVS for Windows

The book Practical Software Configuration Management gets individuals and small teams started with configuration management. The CD-ROM which accompanies the book includes a copy of CVS, including binaries for Windows 95/NT.

For the command line client (and non-client/server CVS), download from download.cyclic.com. Or buy our $40 CD-ROM.

The most popular graphical user interfaces on Windows seem to be tkCVS, jCVS, and WinCVS. Our $40 CD-ROM has copies of all three in the "misc" directory (disclaimer: the programs in the "misc" directory are not as well-packaged as CVS itself, and we do not offer installation support for the "misc" directory).

For more information

People often ask about running the CVS server on Windows. First of all, unless you are accessing CVS across the internet or another slow network, you may be able to use :local:, as described above. Secondly, you might want to consider getting a Linux box (or your favorite unix) for the server. Thirdly, there are experimental patches for running a CVS server on Windows, but they aren't as nicely packaged as CVS itself. See in particular Andy Piper's page.