Individual shadow copies of the currently selected volume are listed in the Shadow Copies Of Selected Volume panel by date and time.
Creating shadow copies
To create a shadow copy on an NTFS volume with shared folders, follow these steps:
1. Open Computer Management. If necessary, connect to a remote computer.
2. In the console tree, expand Storage, and then select Disk Management. The volumes configured on the selected computer are displayed in the details pane.
3. Press and hold or right-click Disk Management, point to All Tasks, and then tap or click Configure Shadow Copies.
4. On the Shadow Copies tab, select the volume with which you want to work in the Select A Volume list.
5. Tap or click Settings to configure the maximum size of all shadow copies for this volume and to change the default schedule. Tap or click OK.
6. After you configure the volume for shadow copying, tap or click Enable if necessary. When prompted to confirm this action, tap or click Yes. Enabling shadow copying creates the first shadow copy and sets the schedule for later shadow copies.
NOTE If you create a run schedule when configuring the Shadow Copy settings, shadow copying is enabled automatically for the volume when you tap or click OK to close the Settings dialog box. However, the first shadow copy won’t be created until the next scheduled run time. If you want to create a shadow copy of the volume now, select the volume and then tap or click Create Now.
Restoring a shadow copy
Users working on client computers access shadow copies of individual shared folders by using the Previous Versions or Shadow Copy client. The best way to access shadow copies on a client computer is to follow these steps:
1. In File Explorer, press and hold or right-click the share for which you want to access previous file versions, tap or click Properties, and then tap or click the Previous Versions tab.
2. On the Previous Versions tab, select the folder version with which you want to work. Each folder has a date and time stamp. Tap or click the button corresponding to the action you want to perform:
■ Tap or click Open to open the shadow copy in File Explorer.
■ Tap or click Copy to display the Copy Items dialog box, which lets you copy the snapshot image of the folder to the location you specify.
■ Tap or click Restore to roll back the shared folder to its state at the time of the snapshot image you selected.
Reverting an entire volume to a previous shadow copy
Windows Server 2012 R2 features a shadow copy enhancement that enables you to revert an entire volume to the state it was in when a particular shadow copy was created. Because volumes containing operating system files can’t be reverted, the volume you want to revert must not be a system volume. The same goes for volumes on a cluster shared disk.
To revert an entire volume to a previous state, follow these steps:
1. Open Computer Management. If necessary, connect to a remote computer.
2. In the console tree, expand Storage. Press and hold or right-click Disk Management, point to All Tasks, and then tap or click Configure Shadow Copies.
3. On the Shadow Copies tab, select the volume with which you want to work in the Select A Volume list.
4. Individual shadow copies of the currently selected volume are listed by date and time in the Shadow Copies Of Selected Volume panel. Select the shadow copy with the date and time stamp to which you want to revert, and then tap or click Revert.
5. To confirm this action, select the Check Here If You Want To Revert This Volume check box, and then tap or click Revert Now. Tap or click OK to close the Shadow Copies dialog box.
Deleting shadow copies
Each point-in-time backup is maintained separately. You can delete individual shadow copies of a volume as necessary, and this recovers the disk space used by the shadow copies.
To delete a shadow copy, follow these steps:
1. Open Computer Management. If necessary, connect to a remote computer.
2. In the console tree, expand Storage. Press and hold or right-click Disk Management, point to All Tasks, and then tap or click Configure Shadow Copies.
3. On the Shadow Copies tab, select the volume with which you want to work in the Select A Volume list.
4. Individual shadow copies of the currently selected volume are listed by date and time in the Shadow Copies Of Selected Volume panel. Select the shadow copy you want to delete, and then tap or click Delete Now. Tap or click Yes to confirm the action.
Disabling shadow copies
If you no longer want to maintain shadow copies of a volume, you can disable the Shadow Copy feature. Disabling this feature turns off the scheduling of automated point-in-time backups and removes any existing shadow copies.
To disable shadow copies of a volume, follow these steps:
1. Open Computer Management. If necessary, connect to a remote computer.
2. In the console tree, expand Storage. Press and hold or right-click Disk Management, point to All Tasks, and then tap or click Configure Shadow Copies.
3. On the Shadow Copies tab, select the volume with which you want to work in the Select A Volume list, and then tap or click Disable.
4. When prompted, confirm the action by tapping or clicking Yes. Tap or click OK to close the Shadow Copies dialog box.
Connecting to network drives
Users can connect to a network drive and to shared resources available on the network. This connection is shown as a network drive that users can access like any other drive on their systems.
NOTE When users connect to network drives, they’re subject not only to the permissions set for the shared resources, but also to Windows Server 2012 R2 file and folder permissions. Differences in these permission sets are usually the reason users might not be able to access a particular file or subfolder within the network drive.
Mapping a network drive
In Windows Server 2012 R2, you connect to a network drive by mapping to it using NET USE and New-PsDrive. The syntax for NET USE is the following:
net use DeviceName \\ComputerName\ShareName
DeviceName specifies the drive letter or an asterisk (*) to use the next available drive letter, and \\ComputerName\ShareName is the UNC path to the share, such as either of the following:
net use g: \\ROMEO\DOCS
or
net use * \\ROMEO\DOCS
NOTE To ensure that the mapped drive is available each time the user logs on, make the mapping persistent by adding the /Persistent: Yes option.