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Is Vista Creating Duplicate Files of Everything?

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Stoic Joker:
Shadow copies are only made for data thats changed, and only when you create a restore point. So no, its not like Vista is making duplicate copies of your files.
-MrCrispy (January 04, 2008, 05:48 PM)
--- End quote ---
Not quite. A restore point is (just that) a restore point. Shadow Copies are tied to the previous versions tab in the file properties dialog, and are created automatically (once a day) by the OS for any file that has been changed.

This feature is also available in XP, but only for files stored on Server 2003 network shares as it's a server side only implementation (e.g. ALL Shadow Copies are stored exclusively on the server)

J-Mac:
I've read  that in the "low-end" Vista versions you cannot use/access the Shadow backups, and you also cannot stop them from being created.  A lot of bloggers have complained that it takes up a fair amount of disk space for an unusable feature.

Jim

wreckedcarzz:
I've read  that in the "low-end" Vista versions you cannot use/access the Shadow backups, and you also cannot stop them from being created.  A lot of bloggers have complained that it takes up a fair amount of disk space for an unusable feature.

Jim
-J-Mac (January 07, 2008, 01:49 AM)
--- End quote ---

The "low end" versions (non Business/Enterprise/Ultimate) do not make Shadow Copies. The feature is not installed into Windows. Not sure where that came about :huh: (I would notice if, when I installed Crysis, suddenly 12GB went lost into space instead of 6). Disk Cleanup also says, "In some versions of Windows Vista, the disk might include file shadow copies..."

Even the official Windows Vista website states that...
Windows Vista includes a useful innovation to help you protect your data: Shadow Copy. Available in the Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista...

--- End quote ---

And still, even if you were using Business/Enterprise/Ultimate, you could simply go into Disk Cleanup, hit the More Options tab, and click the Clean Up button under System Restore and Shadow Copies, to clean all but the most recent restore point and all shadow copies.

J-Mac:
wreckedcarzz:

Unless Microsoft has changed this with an update, ALL versions have Shadow copies.  That's how Vista creates System Restore points.  However the "Previous Versions" feature - which allows you to access those backups is grayed out in Home Basics and Home Premium.  They re only accessible in Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate.  Here's a couple of links that state this:

<a href="http://www.pcpitstop.com/news/dave/2007-04.asp">http://www.pcpitstop.com/news/dave/2007-04.asp</a>

And this is on the <a href="http://cquirke.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C7DAB1E724AB8C23!191.entry?_c=BlogPart">Vista WishList on Chris Quirk's Blog</a>:

"3:  Hidden "previous versions" data

Some editions of Vista do not include the "Previous Versions" feature, and yet the underlying engine continues to generate and maintain these, even though there's no UI to use them.

This is not only wasteful in terms of performance, battery life, global warming etc., it also poses a privacy/security risk.  If someone upgrades the edition of Vista to one that does include the "Previous Versions" feature, then previous versions of data files become available, even though these were spawned before the edition of Vista was upgraded.

In my opinion, editions that do not include the "Previous Versions" feature should not create and maintain multiple previous versions of data files (i.e. over and above NTFS's transaction logging and rollback) and should not expose these after an edition upgrade. "

 
Jim

jgpaiva:
 :huh: :huh: Crazy stuff... And there's no way to stop windows from doing shadow copies?

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