I Hate VSS



  • Someone just shoot me and put me out of my misery, please!

    Who knew moving or adding a folder in VSS could FUCK EVERYTHING UP AGAIN WHAT A FUCKING PIECE OF GARBAGE SHIT WHORE!1!!!!11!!@

    I keep hearing that they're going to switch to TFS... That was years ago goddammit!!!



  • Your rageface is more hardcore than mine. :(



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Your rageface is more hardcore than mine. :(
    I'm fighting with VSS.  I can't think of anything else, other than maybe getting a papercut under your fingernail, that causes as much rage as VSS.



  • I was going to flame you hardcore before I realized that VSS was not your decision.



  • @hoodaticus said:

    I was going to flame you hardcore before I realized that VSS was not your decision.
    Quite the opposite actually...  I've been voicing my concerns over this POS since day one, and apparently they are going to switch to TFS, but fuck knows when.  They were "ready" to make the switch to TFS 2008, but then suddenly pulled back after having a group review it for a year because TFS 2010 is out...  Then when they're "ready" with 2010, oops, 2012 will be here.  Might as well use that, right?

    FFFFFUUUUUUUU....



  • @C-Octothorpe said:

    Someone just shoot me and put me out of my misery, please!

    Who knew moving or adding a folder in VSS could FUCK EVERYTHING UP AGAIN WHAT A FUCKING PIECE OF GARBAGE SHIT WHORE!1!!!!11!!@

    Maybe you should keep all the VSS database files in a git repository so you could roll them back any time VSS fucks them up...




  • @DaveK said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    Someone just shoot me and put me out of my misery, please!

    Who knew moving or adding a folder in VSS could FUCK EVERYTHING UP AGAIN WHAT A FUCKING PIECE OF GARBAGE SHIT WHORE!1!!!!11!!@

    Maybe you should keep all the VSS database files in a git repository so you could roll them back any time VSS fucks them up...
    Thank you for rubbing salt on my wounds...  It helps, it really does...



  • @C-Octothorpe said:

    @DaveK said:

    Maybe you should keep all the VSS database files in a git repository so you could roll them back any time VSS fucks them up...
    Thank you for rubbing salt on my wounds...  It helps, it really does...

    How about some vinegar to boot.



  • @dohpaz42 said:

    How about some vinegar to boot.

    @vss2git said:

    Real-time virus/malware scanners, including Windows Defender, can interfere with Git updating its index file, causing it to fail with errors like "fatal: Unable to write new index file". You may need to configure these tools to exclude scanning the output Git repository path if possible, or temporarily disable them if not.

    What kind of WTFery do you think that bug represents?



  • What is wrong with VSS [Volume Shadow Service]???  <ducking and running>

     Seriously, I *like* Visual Source Safe. Prior to most companies either moving to TFS or some open source package, I made *lots* of money doing recovery merges.



  • @C-Octothorpe said:

    @DaveK said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    Someone just shoot me and put me out of my misery, please!

    Who knew moving or adding a folder in VSS could FUCK EVERYTHING UP AGAIN WHAT A FUCKING PIECE OF GARBAGE SHIT WHORE!1!!!!11!!@

    Maybe you should keep all the VSS database files in a git repository so you could roll them back any time VSS fucks them up...
    Thank you for rubbing salt on my wounds...  It helps, it really does...

    Sorry.  I feel for you; I had to manage a VSS installation once - BUT THAT WAS BACK IN THE FUCKING 1990s AND IT WAS OUTDATED EVEN THEN!

    Strategically speaking, I would suggest you download and print out every article you could find on MSDN about the bugs in VSS, and about the necessity to constantly run the "Fix-the-bugs-in-the-database" utility, and about how there will be bugs in the database that even that won't fix, and circulate them to your relevant managers to explain how urgent it is to get rid of this serious liability that could at any moment blow up in all your faces and set all your projects back by weeks or more of recovery work.   Make it a cost-benefit argument, even PHBs can understand that.




  • @blakeyrat said:

    What kind of WTFery do you think that bug represents?
    Typical antivirus software interference that causes things that shouldn't fail to fail. Those things probably cause more harm than the viruses do.



  • @C-Octothorpe said:

    Who knew moving or adding a folder in VSS could FUCK EVERYTHING UP AGAIN WHAT A FUCKING PIECE OF GARBAGE SHIT WHORE!1!!!!11!!@
     

    Excellent.

    Now that your rage has subsided, maybe you can say what you were actually trying to do? I've never had any real issues with VSS2005 aside from lamenting the set of missing features.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @dohpaz42 said:
    How about some vinegar to boot.

    @vss2git said:

    Real-time virus/malware scanners, including Windows Defender, can interfere with Git updating its index file, causing it to fail with errors like "fatal: Unable to write new index file". You may need to configure these tools to exclude scanning the output Git repository path if possible, or temporarily disable them if not.

    What kind of WTFery do you think that bug represents?

    You're assuming that I actually read (and understood) the entire page, versus just trying to make a stupid joke and just skimming for even the slightest bit of relevance. :)



  • @DaveK said:

    Strategically speaking, I would suggest you download and print out every article you could find on MSDN about the bugs in VSS, and about the necessity to constantly run the "Fix-the-bugs-in-the-database" utility, and about how there will be bugs in the database that even that won't fix, and circulate them to your relevant managers to explain how urgent it is to get rid of this serious liability that could at any moment blow up in all your faces and set all your projects back by weeks or more of recovery work.   Make it a cost-benefit argument, even PHBs can understand that.
    They already identified that it was a POS years ago, but the fucking PHBs (this is a HUGE company, so there are many of them) made really fucking stupid arguments against using TFS which has delayed it for years.  I'll try to reenact the years long argument:

    PHB: TFS is used for development, therefore TFS needs to be in a development environment.

    Developers: But no, we need a production version so developers across the enterprise can use it. 

    PHB: But developers can't have access to production.  

    Developers: But there has been countless companies using it for years with great success!

    PHB: That doesn't matter. We have our Policy (TM).

    Developers: So how would we be able to use TFS then?

    PHB: Maybe each developer should have a copy installed on their machine.

    Developers: [head-desk]

    And do this for about two or more years.  So recently (about a year ago), they relented and allowed one team to "pilot" TFS2008.  They finished their pilot a month ago successfully (of course), and now the PHBs are halting the rollout because TFS2010 is in widespread use and they want to pilot that!



  • @dhromed said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    Who knew moving or adding a folder in VSS could FUCK EVERYTHING UP AGAIN WHAT A FUCKING PIECE OF GARBAGE SHIT WHORE!1!!!!11!!@
     

    Excellent.

    Now that your rage has subsided, maybe you can say what you were actually trying to do? I've never had any real issues with VSS2005 aside from lamenting the set of missing features.

    VSS2005...  I wish I had that.  They'er still using VSS 6.0.  The thing that makes it more painful is that I've already been using TFS for years before I started here.

  • ♿ (Parody)

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    PHB: TFS is used for development, therefore TFS needs to be in a development environment.

    Developers: But no, we need a production version so developers across the enterprise can use it. 

    PHB: But developers can't have access to production.  

    This sounds like we haven't agreed on what production means. You could have replied with something along the lines of, "Well, we use the production email servers all the time!" Presumably, based on this, your VSS servers are in a "Production" environment? Is your development environment really inaccessible across the company? To the point that a SCM server (yes, I know TFS is more than SCM) can't be used?


  • @boomzilla said:

    @C-Octothorpe said:

    PHB: TFS is used for development, therefore TFS needs to be in a development environment.

    Developers: But no, we need a production version so developers across the enterprise can use it. 

    PHB: But developers can't have access to production.  

    This sounds like we haven't agreed on what production means. You could have replied with something along the lines of, "Well, we use the production email servers all the time!" Presumably, based on this, your VSS servers are in a "Production" environment? Is your development environment really inaccessible across the company? To the point that a SCM server (yes, I know TFS is more than SCM) can't be used?
    I was never in on any of the meetings myself (not "important" enough), but I've had many discussions (actually just 2 minutes ago as well) regarding this, and they agrued up and down citing technical documentation, current cases in the corporation, they even had a MS rep come in and try to dumb it down a couple of notches for the management...  Also, trying to reason with someone who just doesn't have the fundamental understanding of the domain problem is pretty well useless.  Especially when they're four or five notches higher on the pay scale than you and they have a corner office...

    Like I said though, they eventually relented, but it's still in the "pilot" phase.

     

    EDIT: so it seems my boss will be heading the TFS 2010 investigation, and he'll be asking me for help.  If any of you stumble across any awesome documentation re TFS 2010, please fire it my way, thanks!

    EDIT2: Sorry, I also realized I never answered your question about prod vs dev.  Dev isn't backed up or really supported.  Having hundreds of thousands of man hours worth of code and IP on a shared environment server which isn't backed up is, well, a little risky...



  • PHB: But developers can't have access to production.  

    Really...not even "production" e-mail????

    ps: If you want some specific info on TFS, please contact me directly: david.corbin@dynconcepts.com



  • @C-Octothorpe said:

    VSS2005...  I wish I had that.  They'er still using VSS 6.0.  The thing that makes it more painful is that I've already been using TFS for years before I started here.

    We recently switched from VSS 6.0... to an outdated version of SVN. :-/

    What's worse than that though is the copy-modify-merge mentality seems to be completely unlearnable by those of the lock-modify-unlock habit. But probably worse than that is we all use a single network-shared working copy of SVN rather than local working copies. So ... we're basically still using VSS :(



  • On the plus side, this thread is causing me to be deeply grateful that we use CVS at work, and that our planned upgrade from Visual Studio 6.0 to 2008 is going ahead despite the existence of 2010.  Thanks!



  • @Abso said:

    On the plus side, this thread is causing me to be deeply grateful that we use CVS at work, and that our planned upgrade from Visual Studio 6.0 to 2008 is going ahead despite the existence of 2010.  Thanks!

    I could live with 2008 too, but apparently there was a licensing issue with MOSS, or somesuch...



  • @C-Octothorpe said:

    @Abso said:

    On the plus side, this thread is causing me to be deeply grateful that we use CVS at work, and that our planned upgrade from Visual Studio 6.0 to 2008 is going ahead despite the existence of 2010.  Thanks!

    I could live with 2008 too, but apparently there was a licensing issue with MOSS, or somesuch...

    Well if you are going to use MOSS, then use need to license MOSS....but most shops simply use SPS which has no licensing issues.



  • @C-Octothorpe said:

    PHB: That doesn't matter. We have our Policy (TM).

     

     

    Your PHB should patent his policy too, not just trademark it - that way nobody else could use it, and they'll have to come up with a different way to screw their employees!

     



  • @ekolis said:

    Your PHB should patent his policy too, not just trademark it - that way nobody else could use it, and they'll have to come up with a different way to screw their employees!

     

    Unfortunately, most jurisdictions require you to demonstrate that your invention is useful before they will award a patent for it. It doesn't have to be very useful (e.g. many gene patents), but I fear this requirement may still prove an insuperable barrier for C-Octothorpe's PHB.



  • @__moz said:

    @ekolis said:

    Your PHB should patent his policy too, not just trademark it - that way nobody else could use it, and they'll have to come up with a different way to screw their employees!

     

    Unfortunately, most jurisdictions require you to demonstrate that your invention is useful before they will award a patent for it. It doesn't have to be very useful (e.g. many gene patents), but I fear this requirement may still prove an insuperable barrier for C-Octothorpe's PHB.

    He uses it, so it must be useful.


  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    What is wrong with VSS [Volume Shadow Service]???  <ducking and running>

     

    vssadmin list writers

    And none are ever fucking stuck.  No.  Not a one.  They're all fine.  Yet have <insert backup program here> try to create a new snapshot and all you get are errors.

    Actually, the worst thing is WHY THE FUCK does VSS (volume shadow services) provide a goddamn option "vssadmin delete shadows" that will never work, ever, because you can't delete any shadow ever created except your own.  Like that ever happens, and even if it did WTF would you do to break the fucker? No, only undeletable ones could EVER break.  No, it's reboot.  REBOOT!  AGAIN!

    (Full disclosure - since I convinced our company to lose Backup Exec and switch to NetBackup, that's not happened, though I'll fully admit NBU is as much a fuckup as BEX.  :)  )

    *sigh*  

     



  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    PHB: But developers can't have access to production.  

    Really...not even "production" e-mail????

    ps: If you want some specific info on TFS, please contact me directly: david.corbin@dynconcepts.com

    Just noticed your post...  Thanks for the offer; I'll probably take you up on it in the coming weeks.



  • I must be mentally blocking VSS out.  I originally thought you were talking about Visual Studio Standard (edition, that is).



  • PVCS is way to go.


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