Okay, so "everyone" hates Visual SourceSafe. But the simple truth is many .NET developers have access to it for free because it comes with their MSDN Subscription. So a lot of .NET developers use it and they are familiar with it. Not because it's the best, but just because it's there. When we launched the new company we too went with Visual SourceSafe because it was included in our subscriptions, we were familiar with it, and it was better than nothing. But since then it has failed us in the biggest ......
The Subversion for Windows HOWTO describes from a beginner's perspective, how to install the Subversion server on a Windows system, and get it running.