Restore previous file versions with Windows Vista

The first thing to do is make sure that Windows Vista has System Restore turned on; without it, Previous Versions (also known as Shadow Copy) feature won’t be available. Right-click on the Computer icon on the Windows Desktop (or from the Start menu) and choose Properties from the pop-up menu. When the window opens, click the System protection link in the left-hand column and when Vista asks for permission, click Continue. When the dialogue box opens, check that there’s a tick next to any disks in the PC that are supposed to be using System Restore. Here for example, it’s just disk C. Note that from now on, some of our instructions will only apply to users of Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions. If you’re using Vista Home Basic or Home Premium, then we have specific guidance for you starting at Step Seven. However, we advise reading through the whole Workshop to understand what’s going on.

Ordinarily, we’d click the OK button to close the dialogue box, but to demonstrate more clearly what’s going on, we’re going to click the System Restore button. When the System Restore wizard opens, ensure the ‘Choose different restore point’ radio button is selected and click the Next button. The subsequent list shows the points at which the system can be restored to – Restore Points are created every day at midnight (if the PC is on), but when new software or Windows updates are installed – hence the different dates in the list. Click the Cancel button to exit the wizard without making any changes.

Close the Control Panel and then navigate to a folder that has some files in it. Remember that to take advantage of the Previous Versions feature, these need to be files that were created before the last Restore Point and have been edited and saved again since. Here we right-clicked on a Notepad document we created two days ago and selected Restore previous versions. This dialogue box shows two earlier versions of the same document.

Here we’ve opened the current version of the document and then switched back to the Previous Versions dialogue box. Then, we can click on each of the copies in turn and choose Open by clicking the button. What we end up with is the current version (on the right) the original version created two days ago (on the left) and the intermediate version edited yesterday (in the middle). Every time Vista saves a snapshot of the PC, it checks to see if a file has changed and if it has, creates a new “shadow copy”.

In this example, the edits are trivial, but if we’d made major changes to a large document and needed to return to the original, then this feature could be a lifesaver. To replace the current version with an older one, locate the correct Shadow Copy, click on it once and then click the Restore button. Vista then asks for permission (and points out that it can’t undo the action afterwards). Click the Restore button to recall the older version. Vista will then display a ‘successfully restored’ message.

Finally, in the right circumstances it’s possible to recover a file that’s been dropped in the Recycle Bin, even if the bin has then been emptied. Open the main user folder and make sure that Folders are visible in the left-hand column (if not, click the arrow next to Folders to reveal them). Right-click on Documents in the folder list (or wherever the file was stored) and choose Restore previous versions. A dialogue box will appear showing various Shadow Copies of the Documents folder which can be opened just as we did in Step Four so that the deleted file may be recovered.

Don’t have the Ultimate, Business or Enterprise versions of Vista? Visit www.shadowexplorer.com, click the Downloads link on the left and then download the latest version of Shadowexplorer – a rudimentary but free program that offers similar features and works with any version of Windows Vista. If Windows issues any warnings, ignore them. When the download completes, open the Downloads folder (it’s inside the main user folder) and then right-click on the downloaded program and choose Run as administrator. This will ensure the program installs correctly.

Ignore any security warnings and install Shadowexplorer accepting all of the defaults, but remove the tick next to ‘Start ShadowExplorer now’. Then, be sure that System Restore is turned on (see Step One) and leave it to do its work. In this example, we’ve created and saved a document; then we’ve created a Restore Point. Then, we’ve edited the document and saved it again with the same name. To recover the previous version, start Shadowexplorer. When Vista displays a warning, click the Allow button and when the program loads, open the dropdown menu and choose the Restore Point.

Use Windows-style commands to open the file structure on the left by clicking the ‘+’ sign next to the drive icon and then navigating down to wherever the original file was saved – here it’s in the Documents folder. Find the file in the main window – here it’s called ‘first version’ – and right-click on it. Choose Export from the pop-up menu and then choose a destination for the recovered file. Here we’re going to copy it to the Windows Desktop so that it will be easy to find.

And here’s the result. On the right is the current version of the document, opened in Notepad. On the left-hand side of the Desktop is the original version, before we added extra sentences. Shadowexplorer is still in the early stages of development and has the odd kink here and there, but for users of Vista Home Basic or Premium, it’s a useful program that allows anyone to access the Previous Versions feature.