file and folder tasks view previous versions of a selected file

please help,
i have just started a new job and the feature that allows you to "view previous versions" of a selected file has disappeared from the file and folder tasks in windows explorer. this is an invaluable tool which allows you to view a previous version of a file at say 7 0'clock in the morning, 12 midday and 5pm in the afternoon and has saved me many times when an autocad file has become corrupted or i just want to go back and retrieve something from an old version. i understand it may have something to do with settings on the server as i certainly can't find any way of turning this feature on through the tools on explorer
thanks
pete

 

Are you certain this was an XP feature?

I honestly have never seen it.

 

yes, it was a feature that i frequently used with xp. i've asked the IT fella here but he hasn't seen it, but i used it all the time before,
pete

 

As far as I know there is no native feature like you are describing. There are many alternative Shells available for XP. Perhaps this was used at your last site.

You might call them for details. But if it was a native feature of XP I honestly believe I would have seen it.

 

It occurs to me I have seen Document Management programs that keep linked lists of previous versions of a Document and allow you to archivally go forwards and backwards on a document.

But this is completely outside of XP as a feature.

This sort of Document Management is a frequent necessity in law firms.

 

Perhaps the program called GoBack was involved. It offers that option on the right-click context menu.

 

GoBack would restore a file from its archive.
(It also takes quite a while).

This would overwrite the current, most modern, version of the file.

I believe if the user was using GoBack he would have noticed.

 

it was not a special program, it was part of windows explorer file and folder tasks.
you could view previous versions of a selected file, either as a read only (then you could "save as" so as not to over write the most upto date file)
or restore and over write the current file.
pete

 

Never heard of such a thing.

Vista, however, will do this for certain file extensions.

Not Explorer in XP.

 

knew i wasn't imagining this feature, click on the link below and see note 4 under the heading "restoring data from a shadow copy" and double click on figure 22.5.
as you can see under the files and folder options there is the facility to "view previous versions "





http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=174367&seqNum=3&rl=1

 

This is not an XP feature.

You do not view previous versions of a file; you view an explorer listing of VSS and available Shadow copies.

To view a file from the VSS, you need to copy it from the VSS store to your desktop or elsewhere. You do not view them directly from VSS. The server administrator or a standard user who has been granted permissions can recover data using previously created shadow copies. The files stored in the shadow copy cannot be accessed directly.