How to Enable Shadow Copies for a volume in Windows Server 2012 R2

Enable Shadow Copies (Enable Previous Versions)

1. Click Start , point to Administrative Tools , and then click Computer Management .

 

1. In the console tree, right-click Shared Folders , click All Tasks , and then click Configure Shadow Copies .

 

• The window that opens will look something like this, displaying all of your local disks:

1. In Select a volume , click the volume that you want to enable Shadow Copies of Shared Folders for, and then click Enable .

• You will see an alert that Windows will create a shadow copy now with the current settings and that the settings might not be appropriate for servers with high I/O loads.

Click Yes if you want to continue or No if you want to select a different volume or settings.

Result

After hitting Yes, a shadow copy was taken and a schedule created to continue automatic copies.

• The default schedule takes two shadow copies per day. Once at 7:00AM and again at 12:00PM every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Modify the schedule:

1. In Select a Volume, select the volume you want to modify and hit Settings below.

1. A window will appear with settings for the selected volume:

• Click Schedule to continue:

 

3. Modify the schedule according to your requirements and hit OK.

 

Congratulations! You’ve enabled shadow copies, or previous versions of files, in Windows Server 2012 R2.