Microsoft Windows Vista Management and Administration

Chapter 11. Using Shadow Copy to Recover Lost or Damaged Files

What Is Shadow Copy?

Shadow Copy is a feature that was made available with Windows Server 2003. In a client/server environment, administrators were able to configure the Volume Shadow Copy Service to make copies of a shared folder at specified points in time, which were then stored on the server. Users were able to access these copies and restore the previous version of a document without administrator intervention. Windows Vista provides this functionality on the client computer, without the need of a domain environment, and it is enabled by default.

Note

Microsoft defines Shadow Copy as a read-only point-in-time replica of an original document. That concept is easy enough to understand; ...