Windows Shadow Copies Explained: Your Hidden Safety Net (And How to Make the Most of It)
Windows System Protection and Restore Points By Dave, Optimised Computin g — Mobile IT Support across Herefordshire You've probably heard the advice: "Make sure you back up your files!" But did you know Windows has a built-in safety net that's been quietly working in the background all along — one that can rescue a deleted or overwritten file in seconds, without needing an external drive? It's called Shadow Copy (or Volume Shadow Copy Service — VSS for short), and it's one of the most underused features in Windows. This post explains what it is, how it works, how to check it's switched on, and — crucially — how to control how many copies Windows keeps. What Is a Shadow Copy? A Shadow Copy is a snapshot of your files and folders at a specific point in time. Windows takes these snapshots automatically in the background, and they live quietly on your hard drive as part of the NTFS file system (the system Windows uses to organise everything on your...