Previous Versions not working-There are no previous versions available

notacyborg said:

I have the same exact problem on my system. I have been searching high and low, but cannot find a connection as to what may be wrong. All I can think of is that I have something installed that is causing the problem, but I cannot imagine what. I tried asking on ExpertsExchange on Sunday night, but of course that was a waste of time since that site is horrible. If I find anything I will let you know.

Thanks buddy - that would be great.

cluberti said:

If you make a Windows backup, as that's the only other thing I know that allows previous versions, that might do it. I can't really explain it otherwise, honestly.

I'll stick my old hard drive in as a second drive, just as a test. I would be surprised if that didn't get it going. Will report back either way.

Thanks.

Thanks. I forgot to update this because I lost some of my bookmarks.

Even though I have Windows backup running, I still can't get previous versions to work, so I will work through your suggestions.

Thanks for taking the time to write everything out so clearly.

I'll post back this time with how I get on.

Finally got round to looking into this after a new install.

I followed your steps and have got it working! Thanks so much for taking the time to write this out. And sorry it took so long to reply properly.

bethel95 said:

File and printer sharing on (which may be important)
HomeGroup connections off (which may be important); I.e., set to "Use user accounts and passwords..."

Just to clarify to others, these settings can be found in:
Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center > Change Advanced sharing settings

I will add that after getting restore previous files to work, I turned "HomeGroup connections" back to "Allow Windows to manage..." and restore previous files still worked OK.

bethel95 said:

Open the Computer Management control panel; expand System Tools\Shared Folders\ and select Shares.

The Computer Management control panel can be found be searching for those words in the start menu's search.

bethel95 said:

ou should see something like this, where all of your logical drives are present in the center-panel list with the "$" behind them:

An admin has removed a broken image link and I suspect it was from this section. Under System Tools > Share Folders > Shares, I see:

• One folder on c:\ root that I purposely shared.
• IPC$
• print$
• Users (on d:\Users, which is where all my user data is)

After completing the next action in the registry, I now also see:

• ADMIN$
• C$
• D$

bethel95 said:

Under "To verify whether a computer is affected by this issue...," follow steps 1 and 2.

Note to others, to change the value of an item in the registry, right click it, then select "Modify". I had to change the value of "AutoShareWks" to "1" on my system. The other item did not exist, which apparently is OK.

Step 7 wasn't necessary for me.

Note: in order to test, search for "Create a restore point" in the start menu search. Then edit a Word doc and save, then test the feature again.

Once again, thank you sir for the help.

@Admins/Brink: Does any of the above need adding to the tutorial: "How to Restore Files and Folders in Windows 7 with Previous Versions"?

I've had 3 recent Win7 installations using the same disc and this feature did not work once.

A lot of good stuff on this thread - hopefully the answer lies therein. However, being of a lazy type, I am going to try removing and reinstating previous versions on each drive. I do have a BUNCH of drives and sometimes find the share disappears for no apparent reason also, so there may be something to the posts, but I'm hoping for an easy fix. Having just glanced at the contents of this thread, I'm not sure if it was stated that anyone tried removing and reinstalling system protection....

Bumping this old thread because after lots of searching the 'net, as usual it was SevenForums to the rescue! But for me, the solution was absolutely this easy, as described under Resolution here:

1. Open a command prompt, type net share, and observe you don't have ADMIN$ or C$ or any other of your hard drives shown there (this was indeed what I saw) which is your problem

2. Go into regedit and find you have zeros in the values below, change them both to 1 and reboot. Try net share again and see the missing values!

This worked straight-off for me, I can see all my "Previous versions" again, though it takes a nervous while to search all my Restore Points:

First backup your registry. Then click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.

1. Locate and then click the following registry sub-key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
2. If the AutoShareServer and AutoShareWks DWORD values in the LanmanServer\Parameters
   sub-key are configured with a value data of 0, change that value to 1.

I looked at another of my computers, which does not have this problem, and its net share is good, Previous Versions works, and it does NOT have the above two registry settings (at all). So why this much older, and much more used/abused computer both had these reg entries and that they were at wrong 0 I dunno. Dunno how it got this way but changing those fixed it and I don't argue with success.

Thanks for posting.

Agreed, if that works, it looks a whole lot simpler.

I'm new here and joined to to reply to Maxseven. I have been searching high and low for a solution for this problem and with an 8 second tweak and reboot you fixed my problem. Just wanted to say thank you so much, this problem has been vexing me for years on and off.This solution worked great and once again thank you so much for saving me many hours of aggravation.

You're very welcome.

FWIW I joined sevenforums years ago when I noticed that many of my problem searches found good answers HERE. Now I try to contribute where I can although "I am not a professional"!