Archive for März 8th, 2009

Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) – Working with vssadmin

Sonntag, März 8th, 2009

A provider is a system resource capable of making a shadow copy. Microsoft provides a standard provider with Windows Server 2003/2008

Use the vssadmin list providers command to display available providers

vssadmin add shadowstorage         Enables VSS for a volume
vssadmin create shadow                Creates a shadow copy for a volume
vssadmin delete shadows              Deletes shadow copies for a volume
vssadmin delete shadowstorage     Disables VSS for a volume
vssadmin list providers                   List VSS providers
vssadmin list shadows                   List Shadow copies
vssadmin list shadowstorage          List storage enabled for VSS
vssadmin list volumes                    List volumes enabled for VSS
vssadmin list writers                      List VSS writers
vssadmin resize shadowstorage     Resize the space set aside for VSS

Example

vssadmin delete shadows /For=C: /Oldest /Quiet

The command line options provide the same functionality as the GUI and in some instances additional information not provided by the GUI, such as details on providers and writers