Ok, here in part 2 we are going to detail the installation process for Subversion on windows. If you follow these directions, it should go pretty smooth, and when you are done, you will have a working subversion server connected to your eclipse for remote development.

Step 1: Download the software you need:

Download Subversion binary installer

I used Setup-Subversion-1.5.1.en-us.msi at the time of writing this. I recommend you get the newest STABLE release.

Download Tortoise SVN installer

I used version 1.5.3 at the time of writing this. I recommend you get the newest STABLE release.

Optional: If you don't have eclipse yet, I highly recommend you get it here (if you don't know which version to get, get the java developers version), along with Aptana tools and either subclipse or subversive. Installation and config of eclipse won't be covered here, but there is plenty of documentation online that a google search will reveal.

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There are a lot of Subversion/windows tutorials out there, but many of them are also outdated. Subversion is quite mature now, and there are several ways to use it for software development lifecycle.

The two most common questions I get about subversion are:

• Can I have subversion manage source on a remote server if I develop over FTP? and

• Do I have to run subversion on my local machine if I want to develop locally.

The short answers to these questions are: Yes, you can have subversion manage code that lives remotely, you just have to know how to do it. And No, you do not need to install and run the subversion software on your local machine if you don't want to.

The ideal setup is that your server runs Subversion to manage code on your remote server, and you simply use a client to connect to your repository for remote development. If you are connecting remotely and actually doing your development on a remote machine, thats where it gets a bit tricky. You will need access to the server and do critical commits, updates, etc. on the server. Other than that, you can remotely develop via FTP.

In Part 2, I will detail the installation process on Windows 2003 (using modern versions of subversion and tortoise SVN), step by step, so that you can get a Subversion server up and running, and connect to it remotely using Eclipse.

Subsequent parts to this will be examples of how to setup projects that are server-side development code versus client-side development code along with pros and cons of each.

If you have specific configuration requests, please post comments so I know what you want to see.

If you do a few google searches for "ghost" and "vista" you will find a ton of posts.  What I have found frustrating is the lack of clarity on one particular issue:

"If you back up a windows vista partition using ghost 2003 (dos based) to another drive or partition, can you restore it and have a bootable vista OS ?"

Answer: YES it works -- see below for how to do this.

There are many people who say if you clone a disk (i.e. you have two hard drives, clone A to B), that ghost 2003 works fine with vista, but nobody has clearly stated how and if it works on a partition to partition basis.

Here is how we setup all our computers:  The primary drive is split into 2 partitions, C: is for the OS, and D: is for files and backups.  In this scenario, the OS drive can be backed up to the D: drive using ghost.

This works great for any windows until Vista came around.  Now all of a sudden, changes to the boot sector make it more difficult.

So here is how to do it:

1. Make sure your system is installed so that you have a C: and a D: partition
   • Note, we set this up so that all your "work files" are on D, so that if you restore a different OS, you can still access all your files.  This way you can have multiple configurations for your computer, one for work, one for games, one for fooling around, etc. and never lose any data.
2. Make a "Bootable ghost CD" (or floppy disk, but our computers don't have disk drives anymore).
   • Here is some info on how to create a bootable ghost cd.
   • FYI you will need the bootable ghost CD because windows vista HATES ghost 2003, so its not easy to install it.  If you have a bootable CD, you have no worries, and just boot from the CD any time you want to backup or restore your system.
   • If you really have a hard time making a bootable ghost cd, email me, and I can help you out (for a small paypal donation).
3. Backup your OS (all windows):
   • Boot up with your "Bootable Ghost CD"
   • Select "Local Partition to Image"
   • Pick your source drive and partition, destination drive and filename.
   • Get coffee.
4. Restore your OS:
   • Windows 9x, 2000, ME, XP, 2003, linux, others:
     • Boot up with your "Bootable Ghost CD"
     • Select "Local Partition From Image"
     • Browse to and pick your ghost disk image
     • Pick the destination drive and partition
     • Get more coffee
     • When done, select "Reset computer"
   • Windows Vista
     • Boot up with your "Bootable Ghost CD" 
     • Quit ghost (should leave you at an A: prompt)
     • Type in "ghost -fdsp" (will re-launch ghost with alternate settings)
     • Select "Local Partition From Image"
     • Browse to and pick your vista ghost disk image
     • Pick the destination drive and partition
     • Get more coffee
     • When done, select to "Reset Computer"

And thats it.  I have found that this works very well with all modern windows versions, and with the few small differences, works great with vista too.  Since we can boot into ghost from a CD, we don't have to install it anymore either.  Now we can all have 10 OS's on our laptops and switch at will.