What do shadow copies do? Should they ever be deleted?

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Disk cleanup shows the ability to delete shadow copies under the more options tab, is there a reason to ever do this?

Are shadow copies related to restore points or are they their own thing?

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The shadow copies are your System Restore points. I use CCleaner to choose which older System Restore points to delete. There is a separate page in CCleaner for displaying all of your System Restore points.

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Moonbear

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Ok, this makes things so much simpler.

I mistakenly thought shadow copies somehow went beyond restore points.

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For a basic home system, Restore Points are the main use for Shadow Copies.

For network shares, they may also be used for file snapshots and other niceties.  That’s a lot more complex a topic though, and perhaps does not apply?

The built in disk cleanup in Windows will delete all but the most recent Restore Point when you use that tool.

In many cases, that can free up an amazing amount of space!

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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GoneToPlaid, Moonbear

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No, the network share options don’t apply here.

But that is what I was thinking about though.

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And it [Windows, except Vista and older] also offers deleting specific shadow copy with vssadmin. However, it is not as simple as using DiskCleanup tool.

To do so, one needs to run (from elevated command prompt):

vssadmin list shadows

Then, one need to identify them by date of creation and original volume.

Finally, to delete selected shadow copy, one needs to run:

vssadmin delete shadow /shadow={identifier of shadow copy}

 

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System Restore points these are mostly an Registry Backup, at systems that do not install its new week any fresh software.

Registry Backup this is approximately 90MB.  Three backup in a row this is 270MB.

There is no savings of significant HDD space,  but if are up to stop worry, you can set Max HDD space for these backup at 1.3GB.  All old ones will be erased automatically.

 

Win7 Pro (Blue Retail Box) i7 4770 - 16GB DDR3 2400XMP - GTX1060 6GB - Professional Workstation

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Generically, VSS is a Windows function that can make backups of a file or volume even when they are in use. See Volume Shadow Copy Service | Microsoft Docs and Shadow Copy – Wikipedia for more information.

--Joe

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windbg

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anonymous wrote:

To do so, one needs to run (from elevated command prompt):

vssadmin list shadows

I save a daily scheduled Shadow copies.
I delete them (except for the last one) by running disk cleanup as admin – more options – cleanup system restore and shadow copies.

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Moonbear

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anonymous wrote:

And it [Windows, except Vista and older] also offers deleting specific shadow copy with vssadmin. However, it is not as simple as using DiskCleanup tool.

To do so, one needs to run (from elevated command prompt):

vssadmin list shadows

Then, one need to identify them by date of creation and original volume.

Finally, to delete selected shadow copy, one needs to run:

vssadmin delete shadow /shadow={identifier of shadow copy}

 

Thanks for the command set,  I was able to confirm that manual deletion of all restore points, this is equal to shadow copies deletion.

Therefore we have two descriptions for a single function.

 

 

 

Win7 Pro (Blue Retail Box) i7 4770 - 16GB DDR3 2400XMP - GTX1060 6GB - Professional Workstation

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Kiriakos T. wrote:

this is equal to shadow copies deletion

It is not the same thing.
Shadow copies can be made independently of restore points – this is what your backup software does to create the backup, then it deletes the shadow copy.

cheers, Paul

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Paul T wrote:

Kiriakos T. wrote:

this is equal to shadow copies deletion

It is not the same thing.
Shadow copies can be made independently of restore points – this is what your backup software does to create the backup, then it deletes the shadow copy.

cheers, Paul

Shadow copies it is a container of third-party files replaced or removed due install / uninstall (of a software package).

Even so at Win7-Pro manual cleanup of entire stored restore points (not single restore point deletion), this activates entire number of Shadow copies complete deletion too.

I am unaware if this is also possible at Win7 Home.  This is why I do not insist of what is right or wrong.    But I am now convinced  that regular Disk-cleanup windows function, this has nothing to do with restore points along Shadow copies.

 

 

Win7 Pro (Blue Retail Box) i7 4770 - 16GB DDR3 2400XMP - GTX1060 6GB - Professional Workstation

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Kiriakos T. wrote:

Shadow copies it is a container of third-party files replaced or removed due install / uninstall (of a software package).

No it is not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy

Removing restore points removes the associated shadow copies.

cheers, Paul

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