How to use Volume Shadows Copy and Robocopy on Win7?

Question

I’d like to backup my system with Robocopy and Powershell, but Robocopy is not able to copy open files. Volume Shadows Copy seems a solution but I can’t find any clear and simple explanation on how to use it. Is there any documentation out there that is clear and simple?

I’m running on Windows 7 x64 Enterprise. Thanks for your help. Franck

Answer 1

Check out the WMI Win32_ShadowCopy class. It has a create method:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa389391(v=vs.85).aspx

Example: (Get-WmiObject -list win32_shadowcopy).Create("C:\","ClientAccessible")

I like DriveImage XML as a fully built VSS backup solution. It's free:

http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm