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I have currently TortoiseSVN 1.7 running on my desktop pc (windows 7) and use it for version control for several projects. Now I need to work on a project where SVN 1.6 is needed and recommended. The client says they expirienced problems with 1.7. How to handle that? I dont assume that I can run 1.6 and 1.7 parallel, can I?

I first thought about uninstalling TortoiseSVN 1.7 and install 1.6 - but in that way my working copies (from the other projects) might be invalid afterwards and I have to checkout again for these projects?

Or can I (according to this) jsut checkout the 1.6 repository from my client, as my TortoiseSVN 1.7 will properly work with the 1.6 server?

Thx for help, greets!

Michbeckable
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  • TortoiseSVN (and SVN clients in general) should be backwards compatible with any older server. I don't think you'll have any problem checking out from a 1.7 or 1.6 server with Tortoise 1.7. – Jonathon Reinhart Oct 10 '13 at 08:36
  • Ok. I am concerned about the commit. Can my 1.7 svn make any changes to the repo that might corrupt the repo of my project client? – Michbeckable Oct 10 '13 at 08:38
  • By "client" (the second time) I assume you mean the person paying for your services? No, the SVN client only manipulates the repo through the protocol - the server isn't going to blindly damage any files. Disclaimer: *I can't be held accountable for any damages resulting from this. You do so at your own risk.* – Jonathon Reinhart Oct 10 '13 at 08:42
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8010996/will-tortoisesvn-1-7-work-properly-against-a-svn-1-6-repository – Jonathon Reinhart Oct 10 '13 at 08:43
  • Thx. Yes I meant the paying costumer - I had edited that comment. So it should work. If you post as anwser I will accept it. – Michbeckable Oct 10 '13 at 08:56

1 Answers1

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As Jonathon said in the comments, SVN clients are all backwards-compatible with older servers, and will not corrupt anything server-side.

However, if your client company "experienced problems" with 1.7, you may run into problems during checkout/update. 1.7 fixed a bug in svn:externals that was allowing file externals to be pulled in from other repositories. This was never supposed to work, but in some circumstances it DID work in 1.6. If your client relies on this bug, you won't be able to check out a full working copy automatically. You should still be able to manually grab any failed externals to get your work done, but if there are a lot of them it could get ugly.

One option for you would be to install the 1.6 command-line tools. You can continue using 1.7 TortoiseSVN for most of your work, and use command-line tools for this one client.

Ben
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  • Using the command line tools 1.6 besides 1.7 Tortoise might be a nice alternative. However as the svn 1.7 client will not corrupt the svn server and contents of my client company I am going with SVN 1.7 as it is. So far it works well! – Michbeckable Oct 11 '13 at 15:40