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Windows Server 2008 Volume Shadow Copy is a mechanism whereby the contents of shared folders can be automatically backed up at pre-determined intervals to a shadow volume. Once implemented, shadow copy will backup the previous 64 versions of each file in the shadowed volume and provide users with the ability to restore files from any of the previous 64 versions without administrator intervention, enabling users to independently restore deleted, damaged or overwritten files from the shadow copy. In addition to restoring individual files to a previous version, shadow copy also provides the ability to restore an entire volume from the shadow copy.
Another use for shadow copy is to enable the backup of locked or open files. Ordinarily, if a file is currently open or locked by an application , tools such as Windows Backup will fail to backup the file. ''Shadow copy aware'' backup tools are, however, able to avoid this problem by using the Volume Shadow Copy Service API.
== Shadow Copy Considerations ==