Restore overwritten or modified documents
There is a small life saving utility that comes with windows vista, you can use it if you have overwritten or modified an important document by mistake.
To restore the previous correct version of the document right click the modified document and select “Restore previous versions”. Allow windows a couple of minutes to lookup “shadow” copies of the file. select one of the discovered shadow copies then hit “copy” at the bottom of the window, save the original copy of the document somewhere else.
That’s it, you saved your job
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4 Comments on Restore overwritten or modified documents
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Martin on
Tue, 16th Jun 2009 10:28 am
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PsMan on
Tue, 16th Jun 2009 11:10 am
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Martin on
Tue, 16th Jun 2009 2:33 pm
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PsMan on
Tue, 16th Jun 2009 3:14 pm
Also, for those without Vista Business and Ultimate editions, take a look at http://www.neveroverwrite.com for a more comprehensive solution. I designed it after feeling slightly let down by shadow copy as it uses backups made once per day (not every time the file changes).
I did not try your solution but I think it is worth trying.
Can you tell us a little bit more about it. I’m a programmer myself and I would like to know alittle more about it.
What file types does it back up? how often? does it detect disk writes (saving over, not explorer file overwriting)? for how long will the backup version be available? what about disk usage? any compression? is the entire file saved or just the changes?
Good luck!
Hi PsMan, yes it works with any file type (though i would avoid large files eg videos). It detects when modifications are made to a file and saves the previous version in an encrypted database. Previous versions are available indefinitely, but you can easily delete versions when viewing the list. Right now the whole file is saved, later versions will just save changes to keep the space down. Windows copy/replace isn’t the same thing as a file modification (windows deletes the file first) so it won’t at the moment help you there. Although I’m looking into this next as a few people have requested it. Quite a new product but hopefully a few people find it useful! 
Hi. Martin
Thanks for clearing things up!
I’m sure these notes will be useful to people interested in your software. I wish you all the luck.
Bye
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