What is needed for 'Previous Versions' to be visible on the client OS?

windows-7 windows-server-2008-r2 vss

6,134

Solution 1

Make sure administrative shares are available. You can check using this KB Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842715/en-us

(Reviewers: It's too much to post it all here, so i'm just posting the link)

Solution 2

Previous versions are not shown if you are accessing the share through DFS in certain configs such as nested DFS links. More here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2466048

6,134

Author by

Zoredache

Real Name: Chris Francy I work as a Senior Network Analyst at Northwest Educational Service District #189 in the Technology Services department. The Technology Service department, in addition to supporting the staff at NWESD, provides network support services to 35 K-12 school districts in Northwest Washington region. In my free time, when I am not at work or answering questions, I play a lot of video games on the PC (Steam Profile).

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Zoredache almost 2 years

I have servers with Shadow Copies enabled taking snapshots a couple times a day. From the server, if you look at the local devices you can see the Previous Versions being populated reliably. But from remote clients, the ability for an end-user to see the Previous Versions seems to be very hit-or-miss.

For the sake of this question you can assume that all my clients are Windows 7 and the Servers are Windows Server 2008 R2.

Is there an exhaustive list of everything that is required for end user to see Previous Versions? Are their any requirements for a certain level of share or filesystem permissions, other then read access? Does something need to be open on the firewall, other then what is already in-place for normal Windows networking?
- MikeAWood about 12 years
  
  Might be a dumb question, but are the workstations part of the domain? I know XP/2003 needed a patch to enable previous versions. I don't know about 7 versions of Home/starter/etc.
- Zoredache about 12 years
  
  The machines I am uses are domain members, but is that a requirement? Do you have any documentation saying that domain membership is needed?
- Atulmaharaj about 12 years
  
  I've had 'previous versions' working without domain membership. Older OS's needed updates, but then it just worked. Don't think any ports need to be opened, but the Shadow Copy Service is required on the server. Also, domain admins can disable the client via GPO, so you may want to check that.
- MikeAWood about 12 years
  
  I don't think domain membership is required, but I was thinking it might be a security issue accessing the previous versions if some users couldn't see it. Does it seem to be a per user or per machine issue?
- Rex about 12 years
  
  Just trying to clarify, is the previous versions tab there and not showing the proper checkpoints or is the previous versions tab not even visible to the user?
- Zoredache about 12 years
  
  @Rex, sorry, I missed your comment. The clients have a Previous Version tab, but they from their perspective, there are no checkpoints.
Zoredache about 12 years

I saw that one already. Some users have problems even when they are not using a DFS path.
Zoredache about 12 years

What part of that article applies to Volume Snapshot Service? Do you have a reference that states admin share access is a requirement for end users to see Previous Versions? In any case I doubt this is a problem.
Rex about 12 years

Actually, I suspect this is exactly the problem. The article may not mention it directly, but it does require access to the admin shares
MichelZ about 12 years

There are many mentions of this in google, e.g. here: dreamlayers.blogspot.ch/2009/09/…