Find more informations about cvs at http://www.cyclic.com. Cvs and WinCVS are free and distributed under the terms of the Gnu Public Licence version 2.
Despite cvs is free, you can have a commercial support by contacting Cyclic Software Inc. (http://www.cyclic.com)
Before using WinCvs, you should have read the cvs documentation.
In order to take full advantage of WinCvs, update your server to cvs-1.10 and use the cvs-1.10 client mode in WinCvs (Preferences).
Read the log window, it is a good way to learn how to use cvs as a command line tool.
Never experience new cvs commands on your working repository. Create a sample module instead.
You can type a cvs command in the log window if you installed TCL (http://www.tclconsortium.org)
Having the cvs repository backed-up every-day is a good idea...
The cvs documentation explains in details how to use branching and merging.
Use the TCP/IP compression only if you have a slow modem connection.
You can easily visualize the history of a file by using the "Graph log" command.
In order to use the command "Lock", you have to set-up correctly the server (see the cvs documentation).
Using a Unix server is a good choice for cvs if you want to customize the cvs behaviours.
Check-out the standard module "CVSROOT" in order to customize the cvs server remotely.
Using TCL script, you can call an external program using the command "exec".
cvs is outstanding for tracking/customizing third part source code or libraries (see the cvs documentation about the import process).
You cannot remove a folder : use the "prune" option instead.
Importing a new module requires some skills : WinCvs is designed to make it easier.
You can open a file directly from WinCvs by double-clicking on it. You can also customize this feature (see the preferences).
In the "Graph log" window you can compare revisions using an external diff program (as set in the preferences).
You can switch between the log window and a graph window by using Ctrl+Tab.
You can reload a view by using 'F5'.
You can open-up an explorer view by using 'F2'.