Visual Source Safe, generally called as 'VSS', is the source control system from Microsoft. This tool was originally developed by another company and later taken over by Microsoft.
Microsoft recently developed a team collaboration tool called "Visual Studio Team System" (VSTS). This tool allows source control management and several other software development management tools. Microsoft will be promoting VSTS in future instead of VSS. However, next few years, VSS will still be the most popular source control system due to it's easy to use user interface, simple configurations and availability of experienced users.
Visual Source Safe is available as part of Visual Studio .NET products. The following are the various versions currently in use by majority of the development teams:
Visual Source Safe 5.0
Visual Source Safe 6.0
Visual Source Safe 2005
Visual Source Safe 2005 is available as part of the Visual Studio 2005 suite of products. However, when you install Visual Studio .NET, this tool is NOT automatically installed. You must select this product from the installation CD and install separately.
