use vssadmin list shadows

Windows Server
2008 R2 Essentials
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Windows Server 2008 Volume Shadow Copy can be a mechanism whereby the contents of shared folders could be instantly backed up at pre-determined intervals to a shadow volume. As soon as implemented, shadow copy will backup the preceding 64 versions of every file while in the shadowed volume and offer users together with the capability to restore files from any of the preceding 64 variations without having administrator intervention, enabling end users to independently restore deleted, harmed or overwritten files. In addition to restoring personal files to a prior edition, shadow duplicate also gives the capability to restore a whole volume.
Another use for shadow copy is usually to enable the backup of locked or open files. Ordinarily, if a file is presently open or locked by an software, resources these as Windows Backup will fail to backup the file. Shadow copy conscious backup instruments are Microsoft Office Home And Student 2010, nonetheless, able to prevent this issue by utilizing the Volume Shadow Copy Support API.
1 Shadow Copy Factors
2 Using Pc Management to Enable and Configure Volume Shadow Copies
3 Restoring an entire Volume
four Configuring and Enabling Shadow Copy from the Command Line
5 Restoring Shadow Copy Snapshots from Clientele
[edit] Shadow Copy Criteria
There really are a quantity of issues that need to be considered when implementing shadow duplicate for shared folders. Very first and foremost the shared folders which can be to get shadowed must be identified. Secondly, a place for the shadow to become stored must be allocated. This may reside both around the identical volume as the shared folders, or on the completely distinct volume or disk drive. Even prior to any data is shadowed, the shadow copy method needs 300MB of accessible room. The total amount of room essential will depend upon the dimension of the shared folder which is to become shadowed as well as the frequency and extent to which the files are probable to change (because shadow copy will only get new snapshots of files which have changed given that the very last snapshot). Lastly, the time and frequency from the volume snapshots must be defined. By default, Shadow Duplicate performs a snapshot twice a day at 7:00am and twelve:00pm.
Once the Shadow Copy system continues to be configured the shadow copy client has to be put in place around the programs of any consumers which are probably to should have the ability to restore files in shared folders.
[edit] Employing Pc Management to Permit and Configure Volume Shadow Copies
Shadow Copy is enabled on the per volume basis. When configured on the volume, all shared folders residing on that volume will instantly be shadowed. Shadow Copy might be configured both graphically employing the Pc Management instrument or by way of the command prompt. Command-line configuration of Shadow Duplicate is going to be coated within a later on area of this chapter. This part will focus on Computer Management configuration.
The initial step is usually to kick off the Pc Management configuration tool (Begin -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management). As soon as invoked, select Storage -> Disk Management through the tree within the left panel to display the disk and volume information for that local method. While in the graphical view, right click on a volume and select on Properties to kick off the properties dialog. While in the properties dialog, select the Shadow Copy tab to display the Shadow Copy properties as illustrated inside the following figure:

A useful shortcut to access the Shadow Duplicate property panel is to run vssuirun from a command prompt with elevated privileges.
The Select a volume segment of the properties dialog lists the volumes present around the local method. Select the volume in this list for which Shadow Duplicate would be to be enabled. Together with the volume selected click around the Settings button to display the following Shadow Copy Settings dialog box:

Inside the Located on this volume specify the volume on which the shadow copies are to be stored. This will be possibly the current volume or a different volume on the program. The Details button displays free and complete disk room information for that at the moment specified volume. Once a suitable volume for that shadow copies has become selected the maximum size to become made accessible for the shadow copies may be defined. This could both be set to Maximum dimensions which will use all offered room around the specified volume, or capped to a specific dimensions (keeping in mind that a minimum of 300MB is essential for your shadow storage volume even ahead of any snapshots are taken). Shadow Duplicate uses a differential approach to backing up files in that only files that have altered considering that the last snapshot are copied. For certain files Office 2010 Product Key, Shadow Copy also only copies the part with the file that has changed, rather than the entire file. As this sort of, it is not necessary to reserve 64 times the dimension in the volume to become copied considering that only parts from the volume is going to be copied with each and every snapshot.
Schedule the shadow copy snapshots by clicking on the Schedule... button. By default, Windows configures two snapshots each day (at 7:00am and 12:00pm respectively). To remove a currently defined snapshot, select it from the drop down list and click on Delete. To modify a run, select it in the drop down list, modify the settings within the lower section in the dialog and click on OK.
To specify additional schedules, click on the New button and specify the days and time of the snapshot. Note that snapshots can also be configured to occur at user logon, program startup and even when the technique is idle. In fact, Windows Server 2008 gives considerable flexibility in terms of scheduling shadow copies. It is important to keep in mind, even so, that there are disadvantages to running a shadow copy too frequently. Firstly, shadow copies are resource intensive tasks, especially on large volumes where many files are subject to frequent changes. Repeated snapshots during periods when the server is heavily utilized may well degrade overall program performance. Secondly, it is important to keep in mind that Shadow Duplicate retains the last 64 variations of a file. Therefore, if a snapshot is run every hour, the oldest restore point offered to a user will be approximately two and half days while in the past. If, around the other hand, snapshots are taken twice a day, the user will have the luxury of restoring a file from a point as much as 32 days ago. It is important, therefore, to strike a balance between longevity and frequency.
The following screenshot illustrates the Shadow Duplicate scheduling dialog:

When the schedules have been configured, click on OK to dismiss the scheduling dialog. Click OK as soon as again while in the Settings dialog to return to the Shadow Duplicate properties panel. At this point, the volume for which a schedule has long been defined will have a small clock image superimposed over the volume icon and will indicate that 0 bytes of shadow copy storage have been used. The next step is always to permit shadow copies around the volume by selecting the volume in the list and clicking around the Allow button. The volume inside the list will update to display the date and time of the next scheduled duplicate and offer a summary of the current level of storage area used for that shadow copies.
To initiate a manual shadow copy now, or at any other time, simply select the volume to become copied from your list in the Shadow Copy properties panel and click on the Create Now button.
[edit] Restoring a whole Volume
To restore a whole volume, access the Shadow Copy property panel both from Computer Management as outline above Office 2007 Activation, or by running vssuirun from a command prompt with elevated privileges. When loaded, select the desired volume followed by a snapshot from which to revive through the Shadow copies of selected volume list and click on the Revert Now... button. This will revert all shared folders on the selected volume to their state at the point that the selected shadow copy was made.
It is important to note that restoration of whole volumes is not possible on technique volumes because this would, in all probability, severely interfere with all the current method state.
[edit] Configuring and Enabling Shadow Duplicate in the Command Line
A significant volume of Shadow Duplicate functionality could be accessed through the command line making use of the vssadmin instrument, which is the concentrate of this part.
In order to obtain information about shadow copies configured on a system, use vssadmin list shadows:
C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadows
vssadmin one.1 - Volume Shadow Duplicate Services administrative command-line device
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp. Contents of shadow copy set ID: 67f25a62-12f1-4e34-b14a-3b57cb03f4f8 Contained one shadow copies at creation time: 8/22/2008 12:29:56 PM Shadow Copy ID: bee54c7f-22a4-4bd0-b6c4-20bc51a8cded Original Volume: (E:)\\?\Volume9fa5f191-6554-11dd-9ce6-000c295707db\ Shadow Copy Volume: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy2 Originating Machine: winserver-2 Services Machine: winserver-2 Provider: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Duplicate provider one.0' Type: ClientAccessible Attributes: Persistent, Client-accessible, No auto release, No writers, Differential Contents of shadow copy set ID: 24c56736-d082-4fa5-ac97-961bd708b4d2 Contained one shadow copies at creation time: 8/22/2008 1:00:04 PM Shadow Duplicate ID: e5a5d032-5449-4375-b4c2-5adf12fedc5d Original Volume: (E:)\\?\Volume9fa5f191-6554-11dd-9ce6-000c295707db\ Shadow Duplicate Volume: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy3 Originating Machine: winserver-2 Services Machine: winserver-2 Provider: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0' Type: ClientAccessible Attributes: Persistent, Client-accessible, No auto release, No writers, Differential Contents of shadow duplicate set ID: 95618a5e-b9f2-4d5c-9654-7fcab5be2c5d Contained 1 shadow copies at creation time: 8/23/2008 seven:00:03 AM Shadow Duplicate ID: 012d8105-ab39-4b17-89c9-bb7dfbeeb1f8 Original Volume: (E:)\\?\Volume9fa5f191-6554-11dd-9ce6-000c295707db\ Shadow Copy Volume: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy4 Originating Machine: winserver-2 Support Machine: winserver-2 Provider: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Duplicate provider 1.0' Type: ClientAccessible Attributes: Persistent Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007, Client-accessible, No auto release, No writers, Differential
To obtain information about how shadow copy storage is allocated to shadow copies, use the vssadmin list shadowstorage:
C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.one - Volume Shadow Duplicate Support administrative command-line instrument
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp. Shadow Copy Storage association For volume: (E:)\\?\Volume9fa5f191-6554-11dd-9ce6-000c295707db\ Shadow Duplicate Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volumef0c004b0-58c1-11dd-a1fe-000c295707
db\ Used Shadow Copy Storage room: one.344 MB Allocated Shadow Copy Storage area: 301.078 MB Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 818 MB
The above command is particularly useful for comparing used and offered area for shadow duplicate storage.
Shadow Duplicate for a volume may also be enabled from your command-line making use of vssadmin, the syntax for that is:
vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=volume /on=storevolume
where volume represents the volume on which shadow duplicate is usually to be enabled and storevolume is the volume on which the shadow copies are to become saved, for example:
vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=d: /on=e:
The maximum storage dimensions may also be specified using the /maxsize= command-line option:
vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=d: /on=e: /maxsize=8GB
A manual shadow copy of an enabled volume may be triggered in the command prompt at any time by running vssadmin as follows:
C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin create shadow /for=e:
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Duplicate Support administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp. Successfully created shadow copy for 'e:\' Shadow Duplicate ID: c9235d96-4ea3-4bc2-b2ee-77397a124914 Shadow Copy Volume Name: \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy7
Specific shadow copies may also be deleted through the command line possibly by specifying that the oldest snapshot is to be deleted or by referencing the specific snapshot by its Shadow Copy Id (which could be obtained through the vssadmin list shadows command). For example, to delete the oldest shadow snapshot:
C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin delete shadows /for=e: /oldest
vssadmin 1.one - Volume Shadow Duplicate Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp. Do you really want to delete one shadow copies (Y/N): [N]? y Successfully deleted 1 shadow copies.
Similarly Windows 7 Home Premium Key, to delete a specific snapshot from a volume:
C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin delete shadows /shadow=879318ea-2f28-4d0c-b58b-5df5cd761984
vssadmin one.one - Volume Shadow Copy Services administrative command-line instrument
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp. Do you really want to delete 1 shadow copies (Y/N): [N]? y Successfully deleted one shadow copies.
The restoration of a shadow from a specific snapshot can be achieved from your command line utilizing the vssadmin revert command combined using the Shadow Copy ID in the required snapshot. Note that the revert cannot be performed if open file handles exist on the volume (the /ForceDismount parameter is accessible but its use is not recommended since it can result in lost information:
C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin revert shadow /shadow=bf7e3df8-b4f9-4068-b208-3c67
8bc85053
vssadmin 1.one - Volume Shadow Duplicate Services administrative command-line instrument
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp. Do you really want to revert to this shadow copy (Y/N): [N]? y
Finally, Shadow Copying on a volume may be disabled via the command prompt making use of the vssadmin delete shadowstorage command, although the command will only work the moment all snapshots associated with the volume have been deleted in the shadow storage. Assuming you will find no existing shapshots, the following example will disable shadow copy around the volume represented because the e: drive:
vssadmin delete shadowstorage /for=e: [edit] Restoring Shadow Duplicate Snapshots from Clientele
Once shadow duplicate continues to be configured for volumes around the server, the next stage would be to learn how to access the preceding version of files from customer methods. This is achieved utilizing a feature of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista called Previous Versions.
To access preceding variations of a file on the client, navigate to the shared folder (or subfolder of a shared folder) or network generate making use of Begin -> Network. Once the desired network generate or shared folder is visible, right click on it and select Restore Prior Versions (or just Preceding Versions on Windows Vista). The moment selected, the Properties dialog box will appear together with the Prior Versions tab pre-selected as illustrated in the following figure:

As shown inside the prior figure, the Prior Variations property page lists the preceding variations in the shared folder which can be accessible for restoration. Quite a few options are offered for each and every shadow duplicate snapshot listed while in the properties dialog. Open will open the folder in Windows Explorer so that personal files and sub-folders could be viewed and copied. The Duplicate... button allows the snapshot in the folder and its contents to get copied to a distinct location. Finally, Restore... restores the folder and files to its state at the time of the presently selected shadow duplicate snapshot. As outlined in the warning dialog, this action cannot be undone as soon as performed.
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