Many a time you delete files or change anything and at some moment you want them back. This might be possible for some applications like Microsoft Office word where you can track every change but thinking from an OS level to track everything is just not easy. 

Windows Vista runs a service which is called as Shadow copy which maintains all the versions of the file created which is helpful when you want a file back at certain date or even when you want to recover deleted files.  This is also called as Volume Snapshot Service which was introduced in Windows XP SP1 and Windows Server 2003. 

However for Vista access to this feature is available in Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista but not in Home and Home premium. Shadow Explorer solves this problem and gives you an interface which works to get access shadow copies of files in Home and Hope plus versions of Windows Vista.

How Shadow Explorer Works ?

Run Shadow explorer after the installation is down. As soon as you run it it gives you a list of all drives i.e. C:, D: etc and It gives you another drop down which contains the list of dates when the shadow copy was made.

List of all versions of Files created by Shadow Copy

If you take a look at the picture above, You can see how it maintains the same structure of directories and files which is in your drive. You can select any date and then extract the copy. Its a good idea to either restore the file first in any external drive or USB. Later you can replace the files.

Shadow Explorer shows empty list ? 

This happens and it happened with me because I had disabled the System protection feature of windows vista which is responsible for making a restore point. Yes I guess this is involved in using shadow copy internally. If this is the case with you, you will not see any restore point in date drop down box.

Missing Restore Point in Shadow explorer

If you like this software , download the latest version of this file from Shadow Explorer

Related : Create fully functional Backups of your files  with Shadow Copy