Windows Vista has many new features. Some are just "eye candy" while others are really handy. The Shadow Copy of Windows Vista is one of the handy features. This feature works in conjunction with the System Restore and Backup utilities built into Vista. Once you see what it does and how to use it, you will wish that this feature had been available all along.
To demonstrate how Shadow Copy works and how to use it we will first create a simple text file and save it to our documents folder. Our sample file was named "test.txt" and was created with the old standby text utility Notepad. If you would like to follow along, this utility can be found using the path "Start > All Programs > Accessories > Notepad." If you need help with the Start Menu, there is an article on this site that covers the Start Menu basics.
With Notepad open, simply type something into the text area. When you have finished typing your text you need to save the file. Notice that toward the top of the Notepad window are the words File, Edit, Format, View and Help. This is the Menu Bar. Left click the word File and on the resulting drop down menu click Save or Save As.
Since this is a new file clicking either command will result in this Save As dialog. Once a copy has been saved, the Save command will resave the file without this dialog appearing. The input box labeled File Name will be activated by default. Type in a name for your file then click the Save button on the lower right.
If you happen to close Notepad, you can find your file in the Documents folder, the default destination for Notepad. Simply click the Start button then on the Start Menu click Documents in the right column.
When the Explorer window opens the contents of the Documents folder will be displayed in the section on the right. The section of this window on the left displays folders in a tree view. In this exercise we will use this window again. You can see here that Notepad isn't the only application that uses this folder as its default Save As location. As a result the documents folder can become rather populated unless you do some regular house cleaning. At any rate, you can see the file text.txt in the right hand pane, even though this window was reduced in size before the screenshot was made and the resulting graphic was resized to fit this page.
Update - 11/11/2007 - This addition is in response to visitor feedback. This visitor found that the documents folder on his/her computer didn't show the tree view in the left pane as was described. The accompanying illustration shows the condition of the documents folder view in its original condition. The tree view in the left pane is revealed by clicking the "Folders" button which is circled in the picture. This button looks like a boxed header title until you place your mouse pointer on it. With your pointer on this area of the left pane the "Folders" title becomes a toggle button. Click to open if the folders aren't visible or click to close if they are visible.
Going a step further, to navigate in the tree view use the arrow heads that appear
when your mouse hovers over the folder names. Clicking a hollow arrow head expands
the view while clicking the solid arrow heads closes that particular folder.
End 11/11/2007 Update
As mentioned earlier, Shadow Copy works via System Restore or from Backups. Restore Points are created automatically on a daily basis. They are also created automatically when you have installed a new program or device driver. To save time, we will need to create a restore point manually rather than wait for Windows to create one that includes our file. To get to the screen shown here click your Start button then in the column to the right you need to right click the Computer listing. This produces a context menu on which you left click the Properties entry. When you arrive at this window left click the System Protection entry located under the Tasks heading in the top left corner.
With the System Protection window open we have a chance to make sure that Automatic restore points are turned on by making sure there is a check in the box next to each drive for which you want restore points created. In this instance there is only one hard drive and the box is already checked. The Create button toward the bottom right is what we opened this window to click. By the way, this is where you will need to go if you are having problems and want to restore your system to a previous state. This is accomplished by clicking the button labeled "System Restore".
A name must be given to your new restore point before the Create button on this screen becomes activated. Fortunately, a letter or two is all it takes as the Create button activates as soon as you start typing something into the text box. Once it is activated click the Create button.
After clicking the second Create button, this screen will appear with its green light bar. The size of your hard drive an the amount of data it holds determines the length of time it takes to create the restore point. The system this screen shot was taken from has a 200+ gigabyte hard drive of which only 50+ gigabytes are being used. The time it took to create the restore point was at most a minute. In other words, the process is fairly quick.
When the restore point has been created this information screen appears. Click the OK button on this and other screens that were opened during this procedure. With that done we can get back to Shadow Copy.
Reopen the text file that was created if it was closed during the digression we just took. Since there wasn't that much text in this file to begin with, add some additional text and resave the file to create a new version. Where Shadow Copy really shines is when you have a large document and accidentally delete part or all of it then being able to recover the document unscathed.
Once again we open the Documents folder. This time we right click the Documents folder in the left pane. On the resulting context menu left click the Restore Previous Versions item.
This is the screen that pops up when clicking Restore Previous Versions. By default, all the headings are expanded. Here they were collapsed to make all the headings visible. Clicking the little arrows at the right end of the heading will expand/collapse the view. Double left clicking one of the versions of Documents opens the folder in a window just as if you had clicked Documents on the Start Menu. The files in this folder can be opened then resaved in the current Documents folder thus restoring the file that was accidentally deleted or changed.
Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Windows, Windows XP and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other names have been included in the above text that are trademarks of the respective companies.
