Understanding Shadow Copies

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Updated: March 30, 2011

Applies To: Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials

With server Shadow Copies, users can view shared files and folders as they existed at points of time in the past. Accessing previous versions of files, or shadow copies, is useful because users can:

  1. Recover files that were accidentally deleted If you accidentally delete a file, you can open a previous version and copy it to a safe location.

  2. Recover from accidentally overwriting a file If you accidentally overwrite a file, you can recover a previous version of the file. (The number of versions depends on how many snapshots you have created.)

  3. Compare versions of a file while working You can use previous versions when you want to check what has changed between versions of a file.

To use Shadow Copies, from a client computer, right-click a server shared folder and select Restore Previous Version.