Ask The Admin

Our answer to this one comes direct from Microsoft and the answer (as always) is YES you can!

They have built in there shadow copy or previous versions from Server 2003 into Vista Ultimate. What that means is that Vista keeps several copies of your files (or at least the changes made to them) and if you say saved over your thesis with a blank document - you can revert back. Save over your new work log file with your old one... revert back.

Its nice but it seems it is only available on Vista Ultimate...

Have you ever accidentally saved over a file you were working on? Accidental file deletion or modification is a common cause of data loss. Windows Vista includes a useful innovation to help you protect your data: Shadow Copy. Available in the Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista, this feature automatically creates point-in-time copies of files as you work, so you can quickly and easily retrieve versions of a document you may have accidentally deleted. Shadow copy is automatically turned on in Windows Vista and creates copies on a scheduled basis of files that have changed. Since only incremental changes are saved, minimal disk space is used for shadow copies.

Easily access this feature by right-clicking a file or folder and selecting "Restore previous versions." It enables you to go back in time and access your files and folders as they were on previous dates. You can preview each file in a read-only version to determine which file to restore. Then, to fully restore it, you can just drag the file to a folder, or select it and click "Restore" to restore it to its original location.

It works on single files as well as whole folders. When restoring a file, all previous versions that are different from the live copy on the disk are shown. When accessing a previous version of a folder, users can browse the folder hierarchy as it was in a previous point in time. [Microsoft]