How to use SourceTree in a virtual desktop environment

Question

My university has setup for my lab a Windows 7 virtual desktop environment to run my analyses with all data stored on a network drive. I do not have administrator privileges. Problem is that every time I login and click on SourceTree it's as if I'm running it for the first time. It doesn't know where my local repository is and I have to finish the install and reclone the repository. I think the problem is that every time I log out, all data on the "C" drive is erased. Is there a way to get SourceTree to work in this setting? If not, is there some other way to synchronize my code (which is saved in a network drive, available from the virtual desktop environment)?

Thanks for your help!

Seth · Answer

If you open SourceTree and click the Terminal button, SourceTree will launch a standard command-line git client. You should be able to navigate and use any existing repository, regardless of whether it has been bookmarked by SourceTree.

You may occasionally get strange error messages when working with a repository on network storage. This question and other questions that are linked within it all related to using git on network storage: https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/275021/fatal-unable-to-write-new-index-file

Andrew Goldfine · Answer

Thanks for the quick reply. They did install source tree, bit every time I logout and then login source tree has forgotten everything I did and I need to start over with it. The code is stored on a network drive so I don't need to reclone it, I just need source tree to know where it is.

Would a command like code be more robust so each time I login I type the same set of command telling it where online my code is and where the local copy is and to synchronize them? If so, what code should I use?

Thanks again

Seth · Answer

Whichever way you cut the cake, you need a git client of some sort installed. If nothing is installed now, you should petition your professors or the IT department to AT LEAST install a git command line environment.

In terms of avoiding re-cloning, you could set up your local repo (the one you keep re-cloning) on some sort of removable media (assuming you can mount that in the virtual environment). Git shouldn't have the same problems treating removable media as local that it does if you try to treat network storage as local.