Side note on the prior thread:

The "tool" provided (shadowexplorer) is basic in it's use, but I only
pointed to it because it does the one thing you needed:
What file(s) are eating up so much space that my Restore Points are
being deleted beyond the most current?
With that info you could exclude only that file from shadow copies. It
would be pointless to chase every file in the exclusion list and I never
intended that.

Since then, I've learned that this may also be a fruitless endeavor as
Shadow Copy would still make the backup, erase you other Restore Points for
any space needed, and THEN delete the file from the restore point (during
optimization) that was supposed to be excluded in the first place.

At my work, we disable shadow copies. Kind of pointless to have backups
of backups especially when you are paying for the maintenance of that
storage capability. We test the backup, extraction and restoration features
weekly. This makes me more prone to use backups as my means of restoration.

At home, I find System Restore points beyond one or two to be worthless.
If you go beyond one or two, you just don't know what you will end up with
for working applications if you are changing them frequently as I do. The
function Restore Previous Version, available by right-clicking a file or
folder is equally pointless except on the very rare occassion where you just
can't undo your editing of a picture or database any other way. (Imagine
restoring a single file within a driver to a previous version that makes use
of 50 files. What will it do now? Instead, you use the roll back function to
get all associated files to revert at the same time.) That said, I limit my
restore point area to 3GB. This lets me go back one or two iterations should
I ever need to and recover from a sudden disaster. (I haven't done this in
the years that the function has been available.) Instead, I accept that
going back beyond two iterations means a restoration of a backup. This is
apparently not an option in Home Premium unless you use third party
software.

Good luck!

"Julian" <msforums@tiger2.notthisbit.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:O4tgRxseIHA.5996@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...[color=blue]
> Thanks for the input Rick..
>
> Re how VSS works - Doh! I see I confused myself <g> Clearly differential
> backups w.r.t some nominal "full backup" in ShadowStorage wouldn't work as
> the reference backup would eventually disappear (on a FIFO basis) and[/color]
render[color=blue]
> the subsequent "backups" useless.... I had a momentary vision of
> "differential" backups being relative to the current systems state... pity[/color]
I[color=blue]
> didn't think a moment longer and realise that would be equally pointless -
> I've acknowledged your point and amended my comments in the blog!
>
> My Windows folder alone seems to be 9.79GB (!) (45k files in 8k folders),[/color]
so[color=blue]
> I can't help wondering how Vista works out what needs to be "copied"
>
> "Rick Rogers" <rick@mvps.org> wrote in message
> news:uvaLkkseIHA.4260@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...[color=green]
> > FWIW
> >[color=darkred]
> >> Size of C drive in GB...................................111GB (74GB[/color][/color][/color]
free)[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> Current Number of Restore Points...............18
> >> Date of Oldest Restore Point (optional)........Feb 2, 2008
> >> How old is your system (months) (optional)..14 months[/color]
> >
> > System Restore set to default size of 15% of drive space. List
> > ShadowStorage shows 15.7GB used of 16.8 maximum space available, so a
> > quick calculation shows an average point is just under 1GB.
> >
> > Keep in mind that if the volume approaches less than 15% free space, the
> > system will actively work to maintain this by reducing alloted space for
> > non-critical processes. Each point contains not only the system file
> > shadows, but also those of a user's files. If you have a lot of files,
> > then the corresponding restore points will be larger.
> >
> > From your blog:
> >
> > "Why should a Restore Point be much less than 2GB? Because restore[/color][/color]
points[color=blue][color=green]
> > ought to be only differences from the current system state, and if not
> > much is being installed, uninstalled, updated etc. the changes should be
> > relatively small."
> >
> > That's not how vss works. It doesn't record only changes, that would be[/color][/color]
a[color=blue][color=green]
> > differential backup. System Restore is more akin to a "copy" of the[/color][/color]
system[color=blue][color=green]
> > at a point in time that can be replaced on demand. Each restore point is[/color][/color]
a[color=blue][color=green]
> > copy unto itself, and is not reliant on any other point, so each would[/color][/color]
be[color=blue][color=green]
> > expected to be appropriately sized.
> >
> > --
> > Best of Luck,
> >
> > Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
> > [url]http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/[/url]
> > Windows help - [url]www.rickrogers.org[/url]
> > My thoughts [url]http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com[/url]
> >
> > "Julian" <msforums@tiger2.notthisbit.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> > news:Oz2OaUseIHA.1208@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...[color=darkred]
> >> Thanks to Windows Mail for messing with the formatting... so much for[/color][/color][/color]
the[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> "columns" - I've rearranged the text
> >>
> >> And if you are interested in more about what the problem to be solved[/color][/color][/color]
is[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
> >> see [url]http://berossus.blogspot.com/search/label/System%20Restore[/url]
> >>
> >>[/color]
> >[/color]
>
> --
> Julian I-Do-Stuff
>
> Some Vista stuff, but mostly just Stuff at [url]http://berossus,blogspot.com[/url]
>[/color]