Restore Previous Versions Isn't Working

[jminiman]

Hey all,

This is a general "what did I break?" question. For some reason, all of my folders show the "Previous Versions" tab, and I have been generating System Restore points somewhat often, but no files/folders have previous restore point information. In other words, I always see "No Previous Versions Available". Volume Shadow Copy service is enabled and doesn't SEEM to be erroring. What else can I check into to see why no file previous versions are available?

Thanks for your help!

[jminiman]

Bump? Any ideas?

[Spooky]

were ther actually any previous versions generated? Is this an upgrade over XP? What other services do you have disabled or are not starting?

[jminiman]

This is a clean install of Vista Business. At one point, I did have previous versions of most folders. Do you know what services, aside from Volume Shadow Copy, are required to make this work?

[Spooky]

Is System Protection turned on for the drive? If System Protection is not turned on, Vista can't create shadow copies.

To turn on System Protection;

1. Open 'Control Panel' then 'System'

2. In the left pane, click System Protection. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3. Under Automatic restore points, select the check box next to the volume where you want to turn on System Protection, then click OK.

The file might be an offline file. Shadow copies are not available for offline files. If your computer is on a corporate network the network administrator might have disabled shadow copies.

This is a clean install of Vista Business. At one point, I did have previous versions of most folders. Do you know what services, aside from Volume Shadow Copy, are required to make this work?

Edited January 5, 2007 by Spooky

[jminiman]

Thanks for your help. My main C drive (Windows, Apps, Data) has itself as checked under "Available Disks". Furthermore, there is a restore point created as of noon today, and there typically is one created each day. When I click on the C drive and choose "Restore Previous Versions", I see nothing available, however.

Computer is not on a domain--it's a home machine.

[Spooky]

Shadow copies are not available for files and folders that are required for Windows to work, like the system folder (the folder that Windows is installed in) and files in the system folder, which is usually C:\Windows. These are basically backed up by System Restore (you have restore scheduled i see) but not shadowed copied. For these folders you have to restore the whole created store point manually by click the buttons to do the restore. Are you trying to restore one of these folders? For others not falling into this category you can do like in my post above this one by making sure System Protection is turned on and they will be included in the next shadow copy.

Thanks for your help. My main C drive (Windows, Apps, Data) has itself as checked under "Available Disks". Furthermore, there is a restore point created as of noon today, and there typically is one created each day. When I click on the C drive and choose "Restore Previous Versions", I see nothing available, however.

Computer is not on a domain--it's a home machine.

Edited January 5, 2007 by Spooky

[jminiman]

I see what you're saying. Can you give me an example of a folder that should have restore points enabled? Also, aside from just turning System Restore on the entire C: drive, how can I force Vista to do regular restore points of non-critical folders?

[Spooky]

I can't really give you an example because it depends on what you think is important and i don't know what files and folders, or types of those items, you consider important but very generally; Lets say that I have a folder with some stuff in it thats for work, lets call it 'My_Work' and its on the C: drive at C:\My_Work, if I think thats an important folder to be able to restore then i'm going to take measures to see that I can restore it.

I see what you're saying. Can you give me an example of a folder that should have restore points enabled? Also, aside from just turning System Restore on the entire C: drive, how can I force Vista to do regular restore points of non-critical folders?

[kartel]

[jminiman]

Heh--I'm not an id***! My question was:

- I have System Restore enabled for the C: Drive. How can I ensure a particular folder, such as C:\Work Files, will have restore points created for it?

As it stands now, no folders have available previous versions despite having the C drive creating system restore points.

[Spooky]

The whole drive will be captured in the restore point. The available 'Previous Version' for folders and files other than those that make Vista work (like the C:\Windows folder for example) should show up in the Shadow Copy.

Vista does this to simplify things a little and make sure everything is captured in the restore point, except it sort of splits it up some.....files and folders that make Vista run are captured in the Restore Point...files and folders that are not used to make Vista run are captured in the Shadow Copy...then both parts are sort of merged together to interact and managed by System Restore. So if you run a restore point on a drive the whole drive in essence gets captured in the restore point.

Shadow copies are automatically saved as part of a restore point in System Properties. If System Protection is turned on, Vista automatically creates shadow copies of files that have been modified since the last restore point was made, which I think your doing once a day.

Important part here for you I think is this where I said above; "Vista automatically creates shadow copies of files that have been modified since the last restore point was made".

So this means if you ran a restore point task say for example today at 1 PM - and you run them at the same time every day, and you modify some files at 2 PM today, then the Shadow Copy files will not show up for the 'Previous Version' until tomorrow after the next 1 PM restore point task run after the files or folders were changed. You can make them show up sooner by manually creating a restore point. The Shadow Copy is not going to show a 'Previous Version' for every file or folder, just those that have changed between restore point task runs and those will not show up as Shadow Copy 'Previous Version' until after the restore point run after the file was changed. It will only show a 'Previous Version' for the folder or file that changed when you right click on that particular folder or file.

So as an example; If I create a file right now, a .txt file for example, and put some information in it then save it, then I manually create a restore point and then try to see a 'Previous Version' I will not see any 'Previous Version for that .txt file because it was saved prior to the restore point run and this was the first restore point run after the file was created. However, if I now open the file and make some changes and save it again, the do another restore point run manually, when I go back to that file and look at the 'Previous Version' I will see the version of the file I first created before the first restore point in this example. Shadow Copy for folders works the same way. Remember the "modified since the last restore point was made" part from above? Thats what we are seeing in this example.

Then the basic rules for using Shadow Copy become; Create file or folder - run restore point - don't see any 'Previous Version'..............then.......make changes to the file or folder - run restore point - now we see 'Previous Versions'

If the drive is partitioned or you have more than one drive in the computer you will need to turn on System Protection on all the partitions and drives, for this to work properly.

Actually a scaled down version of this same thing has been happening for years in the MS Office products. Did you ever have MS Word come up and ask you if you wanted to recover a previous version of a document because it thinks the current one got corrupted? This is what it was doing, Shadow Copy and restore points on a scaled down basis.

Have I really confused you now? I've got a headache

Heh--I'm not an id***! My question was:

- I have System Restore enabled for the C: Drive. How can I ensure a particular folder, such as C:\Work Files, will have restore points created for it?

As it stands now, no folders have available previous versions despite having the C drive creating system restore points.

Edited January 6, 2007 by Spooky

[jminiman]

Your description was stellar and made perfect sense. But unfortunately, even when I perform the exact steps you prescribe above, and despite all of my drives being covered by System Restore (well I have a FAT32 drive which does not show up; it's my page file and temp files disk), my sample .TXT file does not show any Previous Versions to restore from. I must be missing something stupid simple. What other steps can I take to figure this out? Here are some of my services settings:

Windows Backup - Manual (Not Started)

Windows Search - Auto

Volume Shadow Copy - Manual (Started)

Task Scheduler - Auto (Started)

Offline Files - Disabled

Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider - Manual (Started)

Thanks for your continued help!

[Spooky]

"well I have a FAT32 drive which does not show up; it's my page file and temp files disk"

What do you mean by 'which does not show up' ?

If it doesn't show up then its really not showing up for page file activity either, its just storage. Let me guess, i'm probably wrong.........but do you use a fixed page file size and are not using a system managed page file? If it doesn't show up then shadow copy and restore for the system may not work properly. You'll notice that restore and shadow copy applies to the whole system even though you can select individual drives to apply it to. It has problems applying what it does to drives of different formats, it wants to see only one consistant format for all drives in a system. And all the same security principals in Vista for management of NTFS is not applied to FAT32, shadow copy and restore can only work with one level of security at a time not two different levels of security at the same time.

For restore points and Shadow Copy to be effective all your drives should be NTFS. Contrary to popular belief there is no real advantage to keeping your page file on a FAT32 drive when running Vista. Yes I know there are lots of arguments pro and con, but in the end, you will find better sustained performance for page file activity if the page file drive and the Vista install drive are NTFS, and let Vista manage the page file. (a lot of people are probably going to jump on what I just said with all sorts of critiques). And...if your going to use a page file on another drive in Vista make sure the page file is the only file in the partition.

Shadow copy and restore are working fine for me in my systems so I know it works as designed and advertised.

I'm not near my Vista machines right now, i'm at a remote location using some XP machines (wish they were Vista machines), but when I get home later i'll look at some stuff and post back.

Your description was stellar and made perfect sense. But unfortunately, even when I perform the exact steps you prescribe above, and despite all of my drives being covered by System Restore (well I have a FAT32 drive which does not show up; it's my page file and temp files disk), my sample .TXT file does not show any Previous Versions to restore from. I must be missing something stupid simple. What other steps can I take to figure this out? Here are some of my services settings:

Windows Backup - Manual (Not Started)

Windows Search - Auto

Volume Shadow Copy - Manual (Started)

Task Scheduler - Auto (Started)

Offline Files - Disabled

Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider - Manual (Started)

Thanks for your continued help!

[jminiman]

Interesting! Here is how my system is configured:

C Drive - Physical Drive 1 - NTFS - Windows, Program Files

E Drive - Physical Drive 2 - NTFS - Multimedia

F Drive - Physical Drive 3 - FAT32 - SWAP File (System Managed)

G Drive - Physical Drive 3 - FAT32 - Data files/temp files

I'm wondering if I put everything on NTFS if my problem will be solved?