• Windows Server

    Configure Volume Shadow Copy on Windows Server

    Working with Shadow Copy requires elevated privileges. I usually access Shadow Copy through vssuirun. This prompts for elevating privileges. Once open, use the Settings pane to select the volume you’d like to schedule backups to. Then choose how much space shadow copies can use. Click on the Schedule button to configure how frequently backups run. I usually try to time these things for when the server isn’t slammed. Otherwise you might run into issues. By default, Shadow Copy keeps 64 versions of each file. Running snapshots every hour. You can restore easily, by selecting a volume, although volume-based restores are not supported on system derives. Restores can be done using…

  • Windows Server

    Shadow Copy from the Command Line

    I was recently building some scripts to alternate shadow copy storage locations (long story). In so doing, I found that pretty much anything I would normally do in the GUI is exposed at the command prompt using the vssadmin command. The first and one of the most important things that you can do is list settings. This includes the following: providers – lists components that can create and maintain shadow copies shadows – lists shadow copies shadowstorage – lists storage that can be used for shadow copies volumes – lists volumes that have shadow copy enabled writers – lists registered components of applications that store persistent information on a volume…