Shadow Copy?

[gaspah]

I've been trying to look into windows Shadow Copy, but after pages of MSDN and google I've come out with little more useful information than when I went in.

What I'm trying to do is create a shaved backup of system volumes on my computer. I currently backup all the files contained on these system volumes such as Desktop, Download and the myriad of files/folders games decide to scatter the save games around. I currently do this with robocopy plus all my large data backups (totaling around 8tb of data) and with robocopy's great features like /MIR and /MT:x that massive backup is checked/updated in a matter of a minute or two. But I would like to also backup the functioning system installs of my pcs but such as my bedroom pc the windows volume is 1TB with the desktop looking like a graveyard from hell. This stuff is already backed up and I like it accessible the way it is by mirroring the folders. So I essentially want to backup the Root folder, Program Files, Program Files (x86), Windows and the bare minimum of the User folders (don't need desktop, downloads, favorites, links, pictures etc etc) basically just the NTUSER files, AppData and folder structure.

Can anyone lead me along the path that is right?

Cheers

 

[Nasty_Savage]

I'm not entriely positive, but I believe Shadow Copy is 'on drive' copies for quick restores. Say user accidentally deleted word.docx and you need to restore it or replace it with an earlier version. Don't think this is what you would generally want for an ntuser.dat file...

 

[gaspah]

Volume Shadow Copy is the service (the backend) Windows Vista/7 uses for its backup utility but apparently it can be used in other ways too like in server 2008