Have you ever edited a file, and then later wished you could get the old version back? I noted on the Vistastic site that Vista has a feature called Shadow Copy that can do just that, restore an older version of a file. The good news is it’s easy to use, the bad news is it won’t always save you.

Shadow Copy uses System Restore, and relies on a System Restore Point to retrieve the old copy from. To get an older version of a file, a restore point needs to exist between now and the time you want to retrieve the older version from, and the disk the file is on needs to have System Restore enabled. By default, the partition you install Vista on has System Restore enabled, and it is set to create a restore point once a day. Stay tuned for additional tips on how to enable other partitions/drives, and how to change the frequency of restore point creation.

Restoring An Older Version of a File

1. Right-click on the file you wish to get an older version for and choose Restore previous versions
   
2. Using the Date Modified as a guide, choose the version you wish to restore from the list. In this case, I only have one older version I can choose.
   
3. Choose from the three options on what to do with the file
   1. Open: Will simply open the older version of the file, you can then do a Save As to save it, or close it to do nothing.
   2. Copy: Will allow you to copy the older version to a location of your choice, which allows you to retain the new version, and have the old one available as well.
      
   3. Restore: Will restore the old version, which will replace the new version (new version gets deleted)