Thread: Using automatic file backup in Vista home

All versions of Vista regularly create backups of files and folder contents as shadow copies. In the Business and Ultimate editions, the 'Previous versions' tab in the context menu of files offers quick access to the shadow copies. This tab is missing in the budget Home edition.

The Home edition of Vista also creates shadow copies at least once a day and thus occupies a lot of hard disk space. The ShadowExplorer program helps you get rid of this space wastage if you do not want to use the feature, by facilitating access to the files in the Home edition as well.You can directly start the tool once it is installed. You must consent to the User Account Control prompt for admin rights. If this query does not appear or you cannot still access the tool, right¬click on the program icon or its entry in the Start menu and use the context command 'Run as administrator'.

After the program starts, first select the drive and the restore point using the combination fields on the basis of the time and date. Like in Windows Explorer, the tool now displays the folder structure as well as the files that the shadow copy contains. Navigate to the desired file that you want to back up or restore. You can even switch between restore points.When you do this, ShadowExplorer updates the display and remains at the same point in the structure. You can thus browse through the contents of the shadow copies and look for the file that was either changed or deleted.

For copying, right-click the desired file entry and select the 'Export' context command.Next, navigate to the corresponding target folder you wish to save the copy to and confirm with 'OK'. If you want to directly replace a current file, you have to first confirm the program's warning, since the file already exists, with 'Yes'.

Note:

Don't forget that shadow copies are not substitutes for normal backups. Since the data is automatically saved on the same drive as the original data. you can still lose it all in the case of a disk failure. ShadowExplorer functions in a similar way in the Business and Ultimate editions of Vista.