Tortoise SVN Setting up Server and Client Environment

I think you got several things mixed up:
- Visual Source Safe (or VSS) was a version control system by Microsoft (deprecated, and utterly broken IMO)
- Subversion (or SVN) is a widely used version control system (having a client-server architecture, but you can run both on the same machine)
- TortoiseSVN is a Windows client for SVN (having nice features like Integration into Windows explorer with icon overlays)

So if you want to start using SVN, you have to set up a server (should be pretty straightforward, since there's lots of good documentation available) and decide on a client (TortoiseSVN highly recommended if you are using Windows).

I think there is a bit of confusion on how the subversion ecosystem is organised today.

Subversion vs TortoiseSvn

When people talk about Subversion they usually mean the server and client parts which you can find at http://subversion.apache.org/. This is where the source code of the project is available. They provide links to binary builds.

TortoiseSvn on the other hand is a Windows only client tool which permits you to perform Subversion commands from windows explorer. You can find this tool at http://tortoisesvn.net/

Setting up your own server

To set up a Subversion server on windows there are a number of options available. The easiest option and most performing, but not always the most accessible is by using the svnserve service which is provided in the binaries of http://subversion.apache.org/.

The "standard" alternative is using a combination of the apache webserver and the mod_dav_svn module. This permits access to the subversion repositories over http (and https)

Both solutions are sometimes hard to set up and a number of free and paying solutions exist to easier serve your subversion repositories on windows. Some examples, but definitely not an exhaustive list:

• VisualSVN Server UNDER ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT
• SublimeSvn DISCOUNTINUED
• RocketSvn LINK LEADS TO SOME IRRELEVANT SITE