The right answer to both of these questions as well as similar questions is 'cvs status -v ChangeLog' (or some other file) and look for the right branch tag. Then do something like this: cvs -z3 update -P -d -r <the name you found> -P to get rid of any empty directories, -d to check out any new directories, -r to get the right branch. Er, not quite right :-) You don't want that '-A' in there, it means 'move me over to the main branch'. '-r release-21-2' does the right thing. - Tor