Windows 7 - Restore Previous Versions of Files-gctid43657

[Ajamu]

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Have you ever accidently deleted a file, or removed a crucial part of a  document only to realize it no longer makes sense?  Windows 7 is smart  enough to protect you from yourself, and here we'll see how you can  restore files in any edition of Windows 7.
 
Restore Previous Versions of Files in Every Edition of Windows 7

                                                                                                           Have you ever accidently deleted a file, or removed a crucial  part of a document only to realize it no longer makes sense?  Windows 7  is smart enough to protect you from yourself, and here we'll see how you  can restore files in any edition of Windows 7.

How does this work?
 The Previous Versions features is a part of the volume shadow copy  service, which creates restore points to help roll back changes to your  computer in the event of a problem.  It is also the backend for the  surprisingly good image based backup in Windows 7.  By default, shadow  copy will save a copy of your files once a day, or when activated  explicitly such as when installing an update or new program.

The Previous Versions feature was actually a new feature in Windows  Vista, but was not directly available in the Home editions of Vista.   However, the volume shadow copy service was still present, allowing even  users of Home editions of Vista to access previous versions of their files.  The default method is much simpler, so thankfully it is now included in every edition of Windows 7.

How do I access Previous Versions?
 It is simple to access previous versions of any file or folder on  your Windows 7 computer.  Simply open any Explorer window, right-click  on a file or folder you wish to restore, and select "Restore Previous  Versions."  For instance, if you accidently deleted a file from a folder  in My Documents, browse to that folder and open previous versions from  it.  Please note that this will only appear on files and folders, not  drives or Libraries.



This dialog shows all the previous copies of this folder that are  available.  Here we see that there is a copy of my folder e-books from  yesterday, 3 days earlier this week, and some from the week before  that.  Click on the time you wish to restore from.



You can choose to either Open, Copy, or Restore the folder.  If you  click Restore, you can restore the full contents of the folder as it  appeared at some time in the past.



Choose copy to copy the entire contents of the folder as it appeared  at that time to another location.  For instance, you could copy it to a  flash drive for safe keeping.



Or, choose Open to browse the contents of the folder as it appeared  at that time.  You can open, copy, or do anything you choose with the  file from here.  For instance, if I deleted the Audio Books folder  accidently today, I could click copy, and then past it into my normal  e-books folder in my Documents folder.



When in this mode, you are directly browsing the shadow copy of your  hard drive.  The path to the folder shows the date and time of the copy.



And, the great thing is, this feature is available in all editions of  Windows 7, including the low-cost Starter edition often preinstalled in  netbooks.



Change Shadow Copy Settings
 By default, the shadow copies of your files will use up to 5% of your  hard drive space.  You can change this by typing "Shadow Copy" into  your Start Menu search.  Click the "Create a restore point" link.



Here you can restore your system with a restore point, create a new  restore point, or configure the settings.  Click Configure to manage  Shadow Copy.



You can choose to save both system settings and previous versions of  files, only previous versions of files, or to turn this feature off  entirely (which we do not recommend at all).  You can also  choose how much space will be dedicated to these files.  The default is  5% of your hard drive, but you can choose more or less if you wish.   Finally, you can also remove all previous restore points, including the  previous versions of all your files.



Summary
 The Previous Versions feature is definitely a lifesaver. You can actually retrieve deleted files using Shadow Copy in Server 2003.   It has saved us many times when we accidently deleted a file or removed  important information from a document only to realize what we had done  minutes later. For these and many other reasons, don't panic and just  check Previous Versions if you ever lose a file.



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