Vista Shadow Copy Problem (Very Weird!)


Recommended Posts

Hi people of this fine community,

I love vista, in fact I bought this OS right when it was out at my city. until this moment I had no troubles at all of understanding this OS and using its resources and features to the limit, everything seems fine for me and vista is really helping me organize my life (at last, an OS that you can control and has it all).

My big and only one problem is: I have no shadow copy dialogs whatsoever!

Wait, hear this again: I said no dialog! what do I mean?.. When I right click on a photo that I just edited, then chose "restore to a previous version" I get an empty window! everything is available in the window except the box that actually contain the previous versions of the file!

I have no idea why I have such a problem, although I have enough space for shadow copying, and when I tested the beta versions of Vista it use to work on the same hardware.

Here is an image to explain what I get:

sc_p.jpg

I don't know if this is something new or that I'm missing some point, but believe me: I tried every solution possible and searched the whole net, and I did what Microsoft help offered to say (such as having enough space and this stuff) and this is not a joke.

Any help? :)

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/551707-vista-shadow-copy-problem-very-weird/
Share on other sites

Did you disable System Restore? it's needed to stay enabled for Shadow copy to work, also make sure that the "Volume Shadow Copy" service is running (WinKey+R, then services.msc)

Oh and welcome to Neowin (Y).

Guys, I double checked on the "Volume Shadow Copy" service, and it was working (Started & Automatic). And the Restore Point services is ON, meaning that I can always restore my PC to some point of time, and it works fine, but the "Restore to Previous Versions" is still not working! I still get the same window in the image I included in my first post. :(

This is really getting weird!

Did you make sure that a system restore image was created after you edited the picture? I don't think Previous Versions automatically knows that a file has been changed until the next system restore image creation.

Not true, As soon as you edit the file it saves another copy so you can restore to an older version anytime.

A dont know what could be the problem dude. The only idea that comes to mind is to turn off the service and remove all of your restore points via system propertys. restart then put them all back to normal.

@ Vegetunks: I agree with your first point, I tired it in the RC2 and I tried it on other peoples' PCs and Laptops; my company has vista installed on all of our PCs and no problems what so ever. I'll try your suggestion. I'll let you know what happens in a while.

@ Puggsley: I tired restoring to previous versions on all file types possible, everywhere and under all conditions (password, guest, administrator), nothing is working until now! I always get the same thing I showed in the picture on the first post.

The thing is that I don't feel the problem has anything to do with a service or a feature; it is something about the window it self! I can't explain more about it, because I personally at this point don't know what to do.

@ Vegetunks: I tried what you suggested, the results are: Not working! :(

@ Puggsley: I tried the "sfc /scannow", and the results are still the same, empty window just like in the picture in my first post.

I know that I might be annoying but I seriously am confused from this problem, I just want to know what's wrong, hehe. please try your best guys to help me. :)

Hi Biggy83,

We're still interested in understanding this issue but we need your help. Could you please answer the following?

1. Did it work before and only recently start failing, or has it never worked?

2a. Used to work: did you recently install something else? Run a registry cleanup app? (i.e. what else changed?)

2b. Never worked: did Vista setup report any errors? (logs under %windir%\Panther)

Thanks & regards,

Dominik Dalek [MS]

Hi guys.

@ Adi Olten (MS): What command are you talking about? :)

@ Dominik Dalek (MS):

1. Shadow Copy never worked "on the final version" which I bought when vista was out, but it use to work when Vista was beta.

2. Vista installation reported one problem about some software. no hardware problems at all.

At some point I'm going to give up on this shadow copy thing. I will still use Vista because everyday I'm getting woowed with many new things, I'm a designer and Vista for me is like a sexy and responsive MAC without all the boundaries and borders. :)

If only the shadow copy worksss... :(

Volume Shadow Copy wont work unless you manually create restore point, and then starts working.

Kind of true - but this tips does not fit this case though. In case where no restore points were created, this part of GUI (i.e. snapshot browser, list view if you prefer) should be rendered with information label stating, that there are no snapshots on this volume. But we don't see this control rendered at all and would like to investigate this case.

If it has never worked on this install then you don't have much choice but to reinstall!

Not true. There are some possible reasons why this part of GUI is not rendered. We'd like to know what happened and find a) solution without reinstallation b) way to deal with this case in the future, so this kind of disappearance won't hit other users.

Thanks & regards,

Dominik Dalek [MS]

  • 2 months later...
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Apple is expanding Private Cloud Compute beyond its own data centers by Pradeep Viswanathan At WWDC 2026, as part of the improved Apple Intelligence capabilities, Apple today announced that it is expanding Private Cloud Compute (PCC), its privacy-focused cloud infrastructure for Apple Intelligence, beyond its own data centers for the first time. Private Cloud Compute was designed to handle Apple Intelligence requests that are too complex to run fully on-device. The PCC system does not store user data and does not allow Apple or anyone else to access user requests. Last year, Apple also expanded its Security Bounty program with rewards of up to $1 million for researchers who could find serious vulnerabilities in PCC. Until now, Apple's PCC data centers were using Apple's own silicon. As part of the expansion, Apple is working with Google and NVIDIA to run new Apple Intelligence workloads on Google Cloud systems powered by NVIDIA GPUs. Apple will be using this new infrastructure to execute more demanding AI tasks while maintaining the same privacy and security guarantees of PCC. The new implementation uses NVIDIA Confidential Computing with NVIDIA GPUs, Intel CPUs with TDX, and Google’s Titan chip. Apple says it has worked with Google to build additional protections beyond a traditional confidential computing deployment. Despite the expansion to third-party data centers, Apple claims that its core PCC requirements remain unchanged, including stateless computation, no privileged runtime access, non-targetability, and verifiable transparency. The company highlighted that it will continue to control the PCC software stack, and Apple devices will only trust PCC software that has been cryptographically approved by Apple. To take security to the next level, Apple mentioned that it is maintaining an append-only ledger of Google Cloud hardware that is part of the PCC fleet. The company claims this will help reduce the risk of supply chain attacks. In addition to AI infrastructure, Apple also worked with Google to use technologies behind the Gemini family of models to build the next generation of Apple Foundation Models to power Apple Intelligence features across on-device and cloud workloads. As expected, for more demanding AI tasks like agentic tool use and complex reasoning, Apple will rely on the expanded PCC infrastructure running on Google Cloud. The expansion of PCC on Google Cloud will gradually ramp toward the full set of protections during the summer preview period. As before, Apple will also publish binaries for public inspection, provide research tooling, and give researchers access to live PCC nodes in research mode through the Apple Security Bounty Program.
    • my problem with outlook (new) is that it connects only to outlook.com. all connections to external providers goes through there. Got your mail server and want to use imap directly? no way... it adds a connector on outlook.com. last bug; if your email on an external provider if the same as principal email of your microsoft account, it doesn't work...
    • It's the only reason I finally have an iPhone (for work) and enjoy using it so much that I'm tempted to move from android next time I need to replace my own device
    • So is Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, just to mention a few. What's your point? Everyone is a threat from their enemies' perspective. I'd say that Israel is only a threat to their immediate enemies like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, not to anyone else.
    • The government is not the good guy either. You propose 99% of people require that the government overreach and govern their freedom of information and privacy, while ignoring the government is made up 100% of people, of which 99% are (as you described) brain dead. You can't have both. The reality is Signal is absolutely right and the government is doing what it has always done. Ignoring that we are their boss and grabbing all the power they possibly can to make sure we aren't. Your (societies) ###### parenting is not reason enough as to why I can't have a safe platform for my data/information. Thinking the government is helping is precisely what they are targeting psychologically to take suckers like you for a ride. "Think of the children" was, has, is, and will always be a mechanism of control. In the rare occasion it's actually essential the mass consensus has always been there and it doesn't become a debate.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Very Popular
      Captain_Eric earned a badge
      Very Popular
    • One Month Later
      amusc earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      509
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      222
    3. 3
      ATLien_0
      92
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      86
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      81
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!