I just got a new notebook PC with Vista pre-installed.  After removing all the OEM applications and finally re-paving to remove a wasted (er, “recovery”) partition, I’m installing all my development tools.

One tool I’ve really come to appreciate is the AnkhSVN plugin for Visual Studio 2005.  Ankh integrates the Subversion (SVN) source code control system with VS.  I’ve used Subversion at work for the last two years, and I have to say I’m a fan.  Even so, my prior history was with Visual SourceSafe, and I’ve kept that on as my source control system at home.  No more – I’ve decided to take the plunge and move to SVN everywhere.

Unfortunately, after installing AnkhSVN and restarting Visual Studio, I received a not-too-helpful error message from Visual Studio: “The Add-in AnkhSVN failed to load or caused an exception, etc etc…Class not registered  Error number: 80040154”.

Well.

Googling turned up a thread between Jon Skeet and Arild Fines discussing the problem.  Jon was able to successfully install Ankh after uninstalling it, adding the following registry keys, and then reinstalling AnkhSVN:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AnkhUserControlHost.Ankh]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AnkhUserControlHost.Ankh\CLSID]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AnkhUserControlHost.AnkhUserControlHostCtl]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AnkhUserControlHost.AnkhUserControlHostCtl\CLSID]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AnkhUserControlHost.AnkhUserControlHostCtl.1\CLSID]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AnkhUserControlHost.AnkhUserControlHostCtl.1\CLSID]

I tried this and it didn’t work at all.  After trying a number of over things (also starting with “reg”), I re-tried the above steps, but chose to install for ALL USERS instead of just me.  It worked!  Whew.

If you’re still using Visual SourceSafe, you might try giving Subversion and AnkhSVN a shot.  I’ve used sccs, rcs, PVCS, VSS, CVS, and Subversion, and the Subversion tool set is the clear winner in my opinion.  It’s free, too!

Update (2/13/08):  The current development pre-releases of AnkhSVN support Vista and VS2008 with no registry changes.  I’ve been using version 1.0.3.2800 for a few weeks now and it’s working great.  You can get the latest here.