How to enable shadow copying. Setting up a schedule for creating shadow copies

Apparently, there is no need to say that many (if not absolutely all) users have heard that Windows systems have a so-called volume shadow copy service. Of course, not all ordinary users clearly understand what kind of tool this is, what it is used for, how to manage it and how to configure it. Meanwhile, there is nothing particularly complicated here. Let's try to look at the Windows Volume Shadow Copy service, giving the simplest and most understandable explanation. In principle, despite such a seemingly abstruse name, this tool is familiar to everyone without exception, and many encounter it quite often when unexpected failures or critical errors appear in the system, when automatic or manual recovery is required. But first things first.

What is Volume Shadow Copy in Windows?

Let's start by understanding the essence of this tool, which is available in all the latest Windows systems. To understand what a volume copy service is, let's try to do some analysis of this phrase, finding out what exactly it can correspond to in the simplest interpretation. A volume refers to a disk or logical partition. Apparently everyone knows this. As for shadow copying, roughly speaking, it can be interpreted as creating a copy in a mode invisible to the user, often called background.

Thus, it is not difficult to guess that this component is the most common means of creating a backup copy of a disk or partition and saving it in a special reserved area. That is, this is a kind of recovery point from a copy, and this applies not only to the operating system with working parameters, but also to saved user files. Many people have noticed that when a rollback is launched, not only Windows with the programs installed at that time is restored, but also the user’s files.

How does this work?

Now a few words about how it all works. The fact is that when the shadow copy service is activated (either in automatic mode, set by default, or manually), data is saved exactly in the partition for which it is active. In the case of a system partition, saving will be done exactly there.

There is an invisible area on the disk intended for placing copies made into it (if you like, some snapshots of the state at a certain moment), for which the operating system itself reserves about three percent of its total volume in the selected partition, which, by the way, in most cases is taken into account when one of the conditions for the correct operation of the system is the presence of at least five to ten percent of free space on the system disk.

That is why it is not recommended to clutter up the “C” drive, and as a preventative tool, regularly use standard disk cleanup, in which, when dealing with system files, you can free up additional free space by deleting all backup copies (restore points). As you can already guess, if they are completely cleaned, rolling back the system to some previous state will become impossible.

Along the way, it is worth paying attention to the fact that if you disable the shadow copy service, you can bring the system into a working state when starting from removable media, if there is damage to system files or problems with the bootloader. But there is no way to restore user files and previously installed programs.

How practical is it to keep the service active?

Based on the above, it becomes obvious that for quick recovery of the system, programs, and files, you should not disable this component. At least for the system partition - that's true. Indeed, in most cases, the main software components of applications installed by the user are stored on the “C” drive in folders like Program Files and ProgramData. In some cases, even when installing a program on a logical partition, the main libraries necessary for its operation in the Windows environment are still registered in the system partition (of course, only if the application is not portable).

For logical drives, by and large, volume shadow copying can be disabled completely painlessly, since they have nothing to do with the operation of the operating system (except for the cases described above). Actually, the whole setup consists only of enabling or disabling this component, as well as specifying for which partitions backups will be saved, and how much space will be reserved on the disk or in the partition for saving them (it all depends here, if you want , from your generosity or greed). However, even when volume shadow copying is activated, it is not recommended to be overly involved in allocating space for the created snapshots of the disk state, since subsequently, if the partition is excessively full, the system will simply have nowhere to save other important data (for example, the same system cache files or cached data of running programs).

How to enable and configure a service in Windows 7 and higher in the simplest way?

Now let's see where the custom options for this toolkit are. The easiest way to access shadow copy settings in Windows 7 or any other system is by selecting the system protection item, after which you will be automatically redirected to the appropriate tab.

Here, in a special window, all currently active disks and partitions will be shown, for which you can view the shadow copy status a little to the right.

As mentioned earlier, there are not many settings here. After clicking on the corresponding button, you can enable or disable the service for the selected partition, and also use a special slider to increase or decrease the reserved space. You can also delete all previously created images (backups).

How to create a restore point using Windows?

In the main parameters of the protection state, there are also buttons for starting immediate system recovery and creating a checkpoint in manual mode. Please note that, firstly, after deleting all the points for the system partition, rollback will be impossible, and secondly, you can manually create a rollback point only for the disk or partition for which shadow copying is enabled.

As a rule, the entire process takes literally a couple of minutes, and restarting the computer or laptop after completing all operations is not required.

How to view all shadow copies and rollback via command line?

Now we should dwell a little on issues related to viewing all available rollback points, because usually you can select one of them only at the recovery stage, expanding the entire list. This can also be done in the system itself, but few ordinary users know about such methods. At the initial stage, if volume shadow copying is enabled in Windows 7 or any other OS of this family, you should go to the command line and run it as an administrator (such rights are not needed to view points, but may be required to restore the system).

To view VSS snapshots (and these are exactly the same backups), you need to enter the vssadmin.exe list shadows command, after which all control points will be displayed on the screen, for each of which the time and date of creation will be indicated, as well as a special identifier in curly brackets.

With the desired copy, not everything is so simple. The point here is that you first need to mount a separate virtual drive (disk). To do this, use the basic command vshadows -el=(identifier),Z. In this case, the ID value specified above is entered as an identifier, and Z corresponds to the letter of the virtual partition being created. If you need to mount the created disk, use the mountvol Z:\ /D command.

Using other Windows tools and optimization programs

It is clear that many users do not like or do not want to work with the command line due to the complexity of the tools used. Therefore, to configure shadow copying in Windows, you can use other means of the system itself, which turn out to be no less effective. Not to mention several options for launching a rollback with or without restoring system files, the simplest way to enable or disable this tool can be done in the services section (services.msc).

In the editor you need to find the corresponding service, go to its settings using a double click or the RMB menu, after which, say, to deactivate shadow copying you need to perform several actions, but always in the following order:

• stop the service by pressing the appropriate button;
• From the list of launch modes, select a disabled launch type.

After this, you should, again, be sure to save changes to the installed parameters, and then perform a complete reboot of the system.

If shadow copying is activated, the steps are performed in the reverse order. But to restore system parameters, it is better not to use a standard tool, but to give preference to the archiving and recovery section, where there is a corresponding item.

As for creating shadow (backup) copies or deleting them and starting recovery, for such purposes you can use various kinds of optimizers, in which such functions and modules are provided initially.

Additional control methods

It goes without saying that you can start or disable this service using Group Policy settings or even by changing the corresponding system registry keys. However, for the average user, such a technique may turn out to be somewhat more complex than actions with a single service, and you will have to dig around in the same registry to find the necessary parameters, and the matter may not be limited to just the main key for activating or disabling the service (for example, Deleting copies can only be done by completely erasing the corresponding records, but finding them can be extremely problematic). But even after deactivating the main service, you will have to search for the corresponding files on the disk or in a logical partition in order to get rid of them yourself. This is why using such a manual mode looks extremely cumbersome.

Digressing a little from the topic, it is worth mentioning separately that group policies and the registry basically have the same settings, which are duplicated in both editors with different visualization of the presented parameters. And if in policies at the stage of saving installed options you can still refuse to apply the set parameters, then in the registry this option is not provided, since when you exit the editor, the options are saved automatically. In addition, intervention specifically in the system registry without the necessary knowledge can lead to irreversible and catastrophic consequences for the entire system as a whole. Its priority is higher than that of group policies, so changes made in the registry cannot be returned to their original state in the policies (such actions will simply be blocked). So this also needs to be kept in mind.

What should I do if the shadow copy service does not work or gives errors?

Finally, let's look at some possible problems that may arise with this tool. Let's start with the simplest thing. The most common Volume Shadow Copy error is due to the fact that the component itself is in an inactive state (either it is disabled in the standard settings, or in the services section, or in policies, or in the registry). As a rule, even though the system registry may contain a key whose value corresponds to the deactivated state of the service, simply enabling this component in the settings described above helps. In addition, if the backups were not deleted, system restore may work.

But what to do if the volume shadow copy service does not work or works, but with obvious failures? It may well be that this problem is caused only by the fact that there is not enough space on the disk or logical partition to save copies. In this case, we are talking about the fact that the reserved area is full. In this situation, it is advisable to delete those copies that are not needed or are outdated, and leave only one selected one that contains the necessary operating parameters of the system or links to user programs and files. As is already clear, getting rid of all pictures is extremely undesirable. It is advisable to use such actions only if recovery only involves bringing Windows back to life if it is impossible to boot from removable media, but user applications and files are not taken into account (cannot be restored). Just in case, in order not to delete any important system components, you can use standard disk cleanup, but in this case, if the option to delete backups is checked, they will be erased every single one. So, be careful.

Very often, a shadow copy error, oddly enough, can manifest itself in server versions of Windows if they use SharePoint Foundation components. In this case, the problem may be the so-called parallelism of copy creation, when there is a conflict between the real and the created, for example, using the Hyper-V module toolkit. As one of the simplest solutions, many users cite executing the vssadmin list writers line in the command console and then rebooting the system two or three times.

If volume shadow copy does not work due to problems with SharePoint Foundation (or rather, with a special service pack) when creating snapshots in SBS 2011, it is recommended to run the special “SharePoint Configuration Wizard” from the Start menu, twice press the continue buttons without changing anything in the parameters, and at the end - the “Finish” button. After this, you will need to reload the backup and run it again.

Sometimes, although not often, problems with the performance of shadow copy tools can occur when using SQL server databases. In this situation, as evidenced by reviews from some users, partial deletion of unnecessary or unused databases helps, after which copying starts again in normal mode.

Brief conclusions

So, it's time to summarize all of the above. Apparently, many have already realized that there is nothing particularly difficult in understanding what shadow copying tools are. Another thing is that questions immediately arise about a clear decision in favor of enabling or disabling this service. Here - at will. But based on practical considerations, for the system partition, even using standard settings, it is better to leave this operating system function enabled. But for logical partitions in which only some files can be stored, it can be disabled (as a last resort, you can always copy the necessary data to some kind of removable media).

As for errors in the operation of the corresponding service, they are extremely rare in user desktop systems and are mostly associated with an unforeseen accidental shutdown of the service responsible for creating backup copies, which is not difficult to activate even using the simplest methods described above.

And one last note. If you experience problems with recovery even with System State Backup enabled, note that the backup snapshots themselves may be damaged. But most often, this situation with notifications that an unexpected failure has occurred occurs due to violations of the integrity of important system files. To restore them when starting from removable media such as a LiveCD or the original installation media with the system distribution, use the command line and run the sfc /scannow command in it. If this does not work, restore or rewrite the bootloader using the Bootrec.exe tool, adding each time, separated by a space after the main command, the following attributes in the specified sequence:

• /FixMBR.
• /FixBoot.
• /RebuildBSD.

As a rule, this technique allows you to completely restore the loading of the operating system even when critical failures occur, after which you can set a rollback from the existing copy(s) in manual mode. If the system still cannot boot, try using Safe Start by calling up the boot menu by pressing the F8 key (in Windows 8 and 10 this method does not work, so you will need to use additional menus or switch the boot mode to legacy in the command line).

The usefulness of shadow copies, and in particular the Previous Versions feature, largely depends on how often the system backs up data. Shadow copies are created on a schedule: every day at midnight (but only if the computer is turned on and not in use) and 30 minutes after Windows starts.

However, certain conditions must be met. Firstly, the process starts only after 10 minutes of computer inactivity; Archiving is not performed while you are working. Secondly, to save battery power on laptops, archiving occurs only when connected to an AC source (that is, files will not be archived while you are sitting in a cafe). Finally, if a failure occurs, the system does not retry the backup until the next scheduled time. If you're serious about using the Previous Versions feature, you'll probably want to set up a more robust schedule.

Start by launching Task Scheduler (taskschd.msc). Expand the Task Scheduler Library\Microsoft\Windows\SystemRestore branch in the left pane. Right-click SR in the middle pane, select Properties from the context menu, and click the History tab to check how often Windows creates shadow copies of data.

To change the schedule, go to the Triggers tab. If you haven't changed anything yet, there are two entries in the list: Daily and At startup. Select a trigger and click Edit.

You can create a maximum of 64 shadow copies per volume (each volume has its own drive letter), so if you suddenly think it makes sense to create backups every hour, don't rush to change the settings. With this schedule, copies older than two days and sixteen hours will be instantly deleted, regardless of the disk space restrictions set in the Toolbar, which were mentioned just above.

Once you've finished setting up the schedule in the Edit Trigger window, make sure the Enabled checkbox is checked and click OK.

Now go to the Conditions tab. If your computer rarely sits idle, clear the Start the task only if the computer is idle for checkbox. Otherwise, the creation of shadow copies may be delayed indefinitely. However, if computer performance is more important to you, then it is better to leave this option enabled. Likewise, if you often disconnect your laptop from the network, then clear the Start the task only if the computer is on AC power checkbox. On the other hand, when this option is enabled, battery power is saved.

Finally, go to the Settings tab and make sure that the Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed checkbox is checked. Click OK to save your changes.

A more reliable, but less automated way to archive previous versions of files is described in the sidebar "Instant Archiving", and in the next section we will talk about full system archiving and protection against accidental errors.

INSTANT ARCHIVING

The archiving process takes a long time. Moreover, even if you back up every day, data loss is still possible - imagine missing a key, a power outage, or an app crashing. Since archiving is almost the same as simply copying, when working with particularly important data, why not resort to quick and simple backups several times a day? You don't need any special software or hardware, and even better, the process only takes a few seconds.

Solution 1: Simple Copy

If you've spent several hours editing a document and don't want to lose your changes, make a duplicate of the file: open the document folder, right-click on the document and drag it to another part of the same window. In the context menu that opens, select the Copy command (Soru Nege). The newest backup copy of the document is now in the same folder! Of course, a copy can be placed on a USB drive, on an archiving server, or on another computer on the local network.

Solution 2: Simple Zip File

To quickly back up an entire folder, right-click on it and select Send To from the context menu, then Compressed (zipped) Folder. In a few seconds, you will receive a new .zip file containing compressed versions of all the data in your folder. Recovering files is very simple: double-click the zip file and drag the desired files back to the original folder. Read more about this ubiquitous format in the Archiving section.

Solution 3: Previous Versions

Right-click on the document, select Properties and go to the Previous Versions tab in the window that opens to check the automatically created backup copies of this file. Click Copy (Copy) so that when you restore a backup, the newest version of the file is not lost. In Windows, automatic archiving runs on a schedule, if it is turned on at all, so there is no guarantee that the restored copy will be fresh. But the fact that archiving is automatic already means a lot. More information about previous versions is described in the section “Back to the past - using restore points and shadow copies.”

Solution 4: Add-ons

If you don't hate add-ons, then you should like Microsoft's SyncToy. Version 2.1 or later can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft. com/downloads/. In a nutshell, SyncToy is designed to sync two or more folders; she makes sure that the contents remain identical. However, this add-in can also be used to perform an online backup of the contents of a folder. (Tip: For added security, create a second folder on a network or USB drive.) Think of SyncToy as a RAID 1 array of individual folders; Read more about this in the section “Protecting data using a RAID array.” A similar utility, Second Copy (a free version of which can be downloaded from http://www.secondcopy.com/) has an even wider range of capabilities.

This article will discuss the built-in recovery capability of the Windows operating system. It is not uncommon that after installing a program or game, the system stops starting or does not work correctly. In this case, Windows provides recovery by returning to the previous state.

System restore is a component of the Windows operating system designed to restore the functionality of the OS by rolling back system files, registry keys, and installed programs.

Windows optimization myth

Most users believe that not doing a system restore can save system resources, such as RAM and hard drive space. Alas, this belief was true until progress reached its current scale, for example, the Windows 7 operating system will no longer notice much of a difference “before and after” disabling the services responsible for recovery. It's all about the amount of RAM and hard drives used.

• A system restore checkpoint is data that stores information about the state and all settings of the operating system, as well as the programs installed on it. A point-in-time recovery checkpoint is created.

In Windows 7, restore points are created automatically: - according to a schedule; - when installing compatible applications and drivers; - when installing Windows Updates; - when restoring the system to one of the previous points. You can also create a restore point manually at any time.

Note ! The amount of disk space allocated for Volume Shadow Copy Service and recovery point storage depends on the capacity of the hard drive partition.

• Volume Shadow Copy is a Windows operating system service that allows you to copy system and locked files that you are currently working with. This service monitors changes across the entire hard drive partition.

Volume Shadow Copy Service keeps 3 percent of the hard drive partition's capacity if it is less than 64 GB and 5 percent or 10 GB if it is larger than 64 GB. When the disk space allocated for the Volume Shadow Copy service runs out, the old points are deleted and replaced with new ones.

You can go to system protection settings by right-clicking on the “Computer” icon on the desktop and selecting “Properties” and “System Protection” in sequence.

In the window that opens, you can configure the protection of previous versions of files together with system settings or separately, the disk space allocated for storing recovery points, or delete recovery points.

Note ! Even if you deleted a file in the Recycle Bin and then emptied it, you have a good chance of restoring it by returning the computer to a previous state. And all this thanks to the volume shadow copy service.

Pay attention! Windows 7 has the ability to control the space allocated for system protection, that is, you can set the maximum amount of disk space for shadow copy storage. Which significantly increases your chances of system recovery.

System Restore can be started in several ways:

1. In the Start menu, expand the All Programs list. After that, you need to open the “Standard” folder, and then opening the “System” folder, execute the “System Restore” command
2. In the “Backup and Restore” section of the control panel, click “Restore system settings”;
3. Open Control Panel - System - System Protection and click the "System Restore" button.
   In the “System Restore” window, you can return to the last created restore point or select any other one from the available ones. Here you can find out which programs will be affected by the changes during recovery. To do this, select a restore point and click the “Search for affected programs” button.
4. You can also run System Restore from the Windows RE (Recovery Environment), which is created automatically during Windows 7 installation and provides the following features: - Automatic Startup Repair fixes problems that prevent Windows 7 from loading. You can use this tool if your boot files are damaged or overwritten by the bootloader of another operating system; - System Restore allows you to return to the point created before the problem occurred. Sometimes this tool also allows you to restore the system startup; System Image Restore is a wizard that walks you through the steps of restoring the system from an image previously created by Windows Backup; - Windows Memory Diagnostic checks your RAM for errors. Typically, a visible manifestation of errors in RAM is a blue screen (BSOD).
   • To launch the Windows Recovery Environment after turning on the computer, use the F8 key to enter the menu of additional operating system boot options. By selecting the “Troubleshoot your computer” menu item, we launch the recovery environment, where the first thing we will be asked to do is select a keyboard layout. Select the language in which the administrator password is set. After entering the password, we are taken to a window with recovery options, where we are interested in the second item “System Restore”.
   • You can also boot into the recovery environment from the Windows 7 installation disk or a system recovery disk, which you must first create.
5. In addition to the above options for accessing recovery functions, there are a number of other options. One of which is the CCleaner program from the Piriform developer company. Having installed this universal system optimization and configuration tool, go to the “Service” section in which you will find the “System Restore” item. The latest restore points will be displayed in this area. The table will indicate the name of the point, as well as the date and time. Depending on the version of the program, the event during which the point was created is also possible.

Instead of an afterword

As you can see, standard operating system recovery tools are a good option for constantly monitoring the safety of data. This service is also the key to stable operation. Windows, you shouldn't give up this feature.

If you accidentally deleted a file or folder past the Recycle Bin, don't panic. Data recovery programs are here to stay, so try the system tools first. In Windows, you can restore previous versions of files and folders, even if the GUI does not have this option.

In Windows 8, there is one less tab in the properties of drives, folders and files. Please note that previous versions have disappeared.

This is only observed in the client operating system, i.e. in Windows Server 2012 the tab remains. In Windows 10, the tab is back, but... you need to read the article :)

This article has been updated in the context of Windows 10.

Today on the program

Previous versions on Windows 10

The article was written during the days of Windows 8, and in Windows 10 the “Previous Versions” tab returned to the folder properties. However, the material is relevant for Windows 10 because it demonstrates how to recover files directly from shadow copies.

In Windows 10, the tab says that previous versions are formed from file history and shadow copies. First, you need to consider that in Windows 10, system protection is disabled by default, so with standard settings, previous versions are only available from file history, if it is enabled, of course.

Moreover, my experiment on Windows 10 version 1511 (and later 1709) showed that the tab only shows versions from the file history, even if system protection is enabled!

In this picture:

1. Properties of the screenshots folder in the OS. Latest version dated February 27. This is probably the date of the last copy to the file history, which is not working for me right now (the drive is physically disconnected)
2. The latest shadow copy dated May 11 (appeared when creating a restore point before installing WU updates), I create a symbolic link to step 3
3. Contents of the shadow copy. It can be seen that it contains files created shortly before the appearance of the shadow copy of May 11th. However, they are absent in paragraph 1

Thus, you have the best chance of restoring previous versions if file history is enabled. Then the versions are available on a tab in the folder properties or in the file history interface. Otherwise, system protection must be enabled, and if necessary, you will have to get to shadow copies using the methods described later in the article.

How previous versions work, and why the tab was removed in Windows 8

This picture in the properties of files and folders is only a consequence of the fact that there is no longer a file recovery option in the Windows 8 system protection settings.

I’ll say right away that the absence of an entry point in the graphical interface does not mean the absence of technology in the system. Previous versions of files are still available! Therefore, everything said below is fully applicable to Windows 8, and the description of the technology also applies to Windows 7.

Why was the file protection option and the previous versions tab removed? I don't have a definitive answer, but I have some educated guesses that I'll share with you while also explaining how previous versions work.

On many systems this tab was always empty

This has left thousands of people perplexing community forums and Microsoft support with a burning question. But you already guessed what their problem was, didn’t you? These people had their system protection completely disabled!

People did not understand the principle of storing and displaying previous versions

Indeed, why are there several versions for some folders, and none for others? The fact is that different editions of the files in these folders could only be created no earlier than the oldest recovery point.

Agree, when looking at the tab, it is not entirely obvious that saving versions of personal documents and media files is tied to the creation of recovery points (although this is described in Windows help, albeit not without flaws).

It is common to think of points as a means of rolling back system parameters, especially since personal files are not restored (with the exception of these types of files).

Meanwhile, recovery points and previous versions of files (not related to file history) are stored in one place - volume shadow copies.

System Restore simply takes a snapshot of the volume at the right time and stores it in a shadow copy. It is the space allocated for shadow copies that you control in the system protection settings.

Now it becomes clear why the number of versions of files and folders can vary. The state of the file is recorded at the time the recovery point was created. If it changed between points, its version is saved in the shadow copy. If the file remained unchanged during the period covered by the restore points, it will not have previous versions at all.

Windows 8 introduces file history

Once the technology is used, the benefits can be derived from it. In Windows 7, this was not clear to most people, so in Windows 8 they introduced a more visual data backup system - file history.

It doesn't rely on shadow copies, and you can control the number of file versions by specifying the backup frequency. It all depends on your needs and the space on the target disk.

The access tab for “obscure” previous versions in Windows 8 was simply removed, along with the accompanying option in the system protection settings. As for IT specialists, they should be well acquainted with the concept of shadow copies - after all, server operating systems have a tab of the same name in the volume properties to manage them. Therefore, in Windows Server 2012, the “Previous Versions” tab is in its usual place.

In Windows 8+, restore points are created using a special algorithm, and along with them, previous versions of your files and folders are saved. Next I will tell you how to open them.

How to open previous versions of files and folders from shadow copies

Below are two methods that will work if you have system protection enabled. The first one is suitable for all supported Windows and will be useful if you don't have file history enabled. The second method makes sense only in Windows 8/8.1, taking into account the note about Windows 10 at the beginning of the article.

Method 1 - Symbolic link to shadow copies (Windows 7 and later)

Regular blog readers have already seen this trick in the article about the function of updating a PC without deleting files (Refresh Your PC). It also uses shadow copies to intermediately save the disk when you create your rollback image.

Then I needed this focus to understand the technology, but now you may need it to solve a very specific problem. In a command prompt running as administrator, run:

Vssadmin list shadows

You will see a list of shadow copies on all volumes. Each of them is indicated by a drive letter, so it will be easy for you to navigate. In addition, each shadow copy corresponds by date to one of the recovery points (to list them, run in the console rstrui).

Select the desired date and copy the shadow copy volume ID. Now use it in the second command (don't forget to add a backslash at the end):

Mklink /d %SystemDrive%\shadow \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy2\

You already have a symbolic link in the root of the system drive shadow, leading to the shadow copy! By following the link, you will see a familiar structure of files and folders - these are their previous versions.

Method 2 - Login to a shared drive over the network (Windows 8 and 8.1)

Added 01/15/2013. In the comments, reader Alexey shared a simpler way to access shadow copies compared to what was originally described in the article. At first the method worked, but later Microsoft closed the loophole with some update. However, Nick's reader eventually suggested a workaround.

First you need to make the disk shared, and then access it “over the network”. In the “This PC” window, open “Network” and log into your PC, or using an administrator account, paste the network path into the address bar of Explorer or into the “Run” window:

\\%computername%\C$

where C is the letter of the desired drive. In network folders, the “Previous Versions” tab is present:

Since I've resorted to retrieving data from shadow copies several times, I'm a little sorry for the loss in the GUI. After all, the “Previous Versions” tab was convenient because it immediately allowed you to get to the necessary files.

However, I didn’t use this opportunity so often that entering two commands into the console gave me terrible inconvenience. After all, the main thing is the presence of previous versions of the files, and I can get to them! Now you can too ;)

Have you ever had the opportunity to restore previous versions of files from shadow copies? Tell us in the comments why the need arose and whether you managed to restore everything.

I still think that most readers have never used this feature on home systems, and therefore its disappearance from the GUI will not upset them too much. In the next post, we'll talk about why various Windows features are disappearing or undergoing changes, and what you can do to help change the situation.

Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) stores recovery points and supports file backup and recovery using a snapshot mechanism called shadow copies. VSS creates static copies of open files and applications that are otherwise too volatile to be backed up.

It sounds convincing, but VSS takes up a lot of disk space. To get started, use the "vssadmin" command to see how much space the current volume shadow copies are using with the "vssadmin list shadowstorage" command. (For more information, click the "Start" button, type cmd in the search bar, and then type vssadmin /? for help.)

In the screenshot below, recovery points for drives C: and D are activated; There are also shadow copies on these same disks. Let's see how much disk space is wasted on shadow copies of these drives: 22.079 GB on drive D: (total volume: 149 GB; space occupied by shadow copies = 15.5%) and 64.448 GB on drive C: (total volume: 465 GB; volume occupied by shadow copies = 14.9%).

At one point, we found only 230 GB of free space on the 465 GB C: drive, even though we knew for sure that it contained only 120 GB of files. The search for the missing 115 GB led us to the Volume Shadow Copy Service. We used the "vssadmin list shadows" command again (we didn't show the result here because it's very long: it lists all the shadow copies on the disk) and found out that one of the shadow copies takes up 85 GB! Since we were recently copying a large collection of music files from an old 200GB USB drive to our new, faster SATA drive, VSS apparently created a shadow copy of those files at the same time it copied them to a user-accessible folder.

How to get rid of this unnecessary shadow copy? By default, Vista allocates 15% of disk space to shadow copies, but the operating system does not strictly limit the total size of shadow copies. If the shadow copy needs more space, Vista will be happy to provide it. Using the vssadmin command line utility, you can set a clear disk space limit for shadow copies. Here's how to do it:

Vssadmin resize shadowstorage /For=T: /On=T: /MaxSize=Num

Instead of the letter "T", substitute the name of your disk and replace "Num" with a number equal to 15% of the capacity of this disk. In the case of our C: drive, this command will look like this:

Vssadmin resize shadowstorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=69GB

Before using this trick, take a backup of your system and create a restore point immediately after rebooting your system. After running the above command, Vista automatically deletes the oldest restore points first until it reaches the limit you set.