I'm amazed by how often I see this question on the newsgroups and listservers.

faQ: How can I edit a file that another user has checked out?

A: Allow Multiple Checkouts
Iin VSS Administrator: Tools|Options|General|"Allow Mulitiple Checkouts".  The help topic for this option says, "Controls whether many people can check out one file simultaneously. Under ordinary circumstances, only one person can have a file checked out of VSS at one time. If you select this box, however, VSS allows many people to check out the same file. When the first user checks in the file, VSS updates the file; thereafter, VSS merges in all subsequent changes."

For concurrent software development--and especially in Extreme Programming shops--changing this option to TRUE can be quite helpful.

CAUTION: If your team uses VSS to store primarily binary, non-text files (doc, .xls, .dwg, etc), I do not recommend changing this option.  VSS can automatically merge differing versions of text files but cannot do so for binary files.

What do you think? 
Should "Allow Multiple Checkouts" be ON by default? If your team works in multiple checkout mode, how long did it take you to find the feature and how often do merge conflicts occur?

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