This morning I’m playing on my Vista box, when I accidentally Right clicked on the Pictures folder [Called My Pictures in XP] and I noticed in the menu ‘Restore Previous Versions’. Funny. I’ve been using Vista since build 5308 and either one of two things happened. First, I have never Right clicked on any folders in Documents OR I never noticed this menu entry before.

What is also strange, I haven’t read about ‘Restore Previous Versions’ feature anywhere. So this must be some very secret stuff. Over to Microsoft’s site. Look here. Now I’m not talking about the Restore Feature nor Backup, but what Microsoft calls a ’shadow copy’ feature. Microsoft describes this feature as:

“The Previous Version feature lets you quickly recover a file you accidentally lost or changed.

Have you ever accidentally saved over a file you were working on? Accidental file deletion or modification is a common cause of data loss. Windows Vista includes another useful innovation to help you protect your data: Previous Versions. This feature automatically creates point-in-time copies of files as you work, so you can quickly and easily retrieve versions of a document you may have accidentally deleted.”

Ron scratches his head. I never read about this, heard about this or was aware that this feature even existed. Further checking revealed that this feature was first introduced in Windows Server. And then I discovered that this feature is only available in the high end versions of Vista Business and Vista Ultimate.

Looks like there is going to be a lot to learn. Especially when it comes to what features each version of Vista will have.

Tags: vista, features, business, ultimate, editions