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How can I enable Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshots in Windows Server 2003?

A. To enable VSS snapshots (aka Shadow Copies) for a particular drive, perform the following steps:

  1. Open Windows Explorer or the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Disk Management snap-in, then right-click the drive.
  2. Select Properties from the context menu.
  3. Select the Shadow Copies tab.
  4. Under "Select a volume," select the volume for which you want to enable Shadow Copies.
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  5. Click Settings to configure VSS. (If you don't configure the default settings, Windows 2003 will use a default configuration that creates a Shadow Copy on the selected drive at 07:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. every weekday).
  6. In the displayed dialog box, configure the settings to tell Windows 2003 where you want VSS to store the Shadow Copies (you can specify only the drive--you can't specify a folder) and the maximum amount of space to use for the Shadow Copies (at least 100MB), then click Schedule.
  7. From the drop-down list in the Schedule dialog box, select a time to make a scheduled Shadow Copy. After you select a time, you can use the options in the dialog box to specify when VSS runs (i.e., the date and time). You can also click New to create a new schedule. For example, you might want to schedule the system to make a Volume Copy on Saturday at 7:00 a.m. and on Sunday at 7:00 a.m. Click OK after you finish selecting the scheduling options.
  8. Click OK to exit the main Settings dialog box.

VSS will now be enabled (you don't need to click Enable). You can optionally click Create Now to create a starting snapshot.

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