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The simplest version (free for single users and some open-source developers) is so simple it doesn't even support branching and merging. The full version does, and it isn't terribly expensive. It's pretty easy to install, too.

I'll second the vote for CS-RCS

Several years ago I was in a similar situation to the original poster - lone developer, several smallish projects, manually managing files. I'm fairly certain it was an Ask Slashdot that led me to CS-RCS. As a lone developer, I didn't see much need for a complex CVS system. RCS does a great job for my needs, and was free to boot. They do offer a paid "Pro" version, which offers more features. They have a decent chart that compares the free to the pro version.

CS-RCS integrates well into Windows Explorer, and makes it easy to Check in/Check out/Compare revisions right from your editor.

CVS (Concurrent Versioning System) is definitely the way to go.

Here are some links to get you started:

CVS On Windows

WinCVS GUI (very nice, uses Python undeneath)

Tortoise CVS

CVS NT Wiki

Component CVS for Windows

All of these are CVS for Windows tools. CVS is a great revision control system.

I'm investigating the CVS support (plus the more general Group stuff) that's built-in to Eclipse, to see if I can use it.

CS-RCS (what I'm integrating) uses GNU RCS under the covers, which is what's underlying CVS, too (I think). They do offer an add-on to support CVS, but only in the paid version, so I'm still investigating.

JBuilder actually has all kinds of concurrent development features as well, including MS SCC integration (which CS-RCS does support directly!), but it's only enabled in the Enterprise version, so I couldn't use it.

Accidental change/deletion of content - that is where version control may be put to a good use. Create CVS repository on your Linux server (preferably, one that has RAID). Install TortoiseCVS on your Win32 workstation. That's all. Adding docs to repository, updating, retreiving previous versions is as simple as right-clicking the mouse. It was unthinkable to recommend CVS use to a non-programmer, but TortoiseCVS have changed it.

I am using versionoing at home for all sorts of files. What really helps is to have one copy of each document. No need for draft versions etc. I am also using this free diff program to view changes in MS Word documents.

Have a look at Component Software. It's windows, it does binaries and ascii, and you don't need to understand CVS (although it uses CVS). You can't really run a diff on a binary but you can retrieve and view previous versions.

- TortoiseCVS integrates seamless on Windows desktop an permits to control entire trees, but you must have a CVS server to store archives. - CS-RCS shareware (ssite) has a easy interface, integrates with MS-Word version control and Windows desktop, and uses RCS archive format like CVS. But can be little slow in large trees. I have developed my own solution, a web interface to mantain baselined trees of code + documentation (Office) of software development process. I'm planning a simple version, for documentation only.