It's late in the day, and suddenly the file you've been working on all afternoon becomes corrupted. Or maybe you accidentally saved another file over it. Have no fear! As long as you saved it to a network drive, you can restore the file quickly and painlessly.

In the past, restoring files meant issuing a
Help Track ticket and waiting for someone there to dig up a previous version of your file. Now, thanks to improvements in Microsoft software, SLAC employees and users can restore files themselves.

"This new functionality makes file recovery faster and easier," said Brian Scott of the SLAC Windows Infrastructure Group. "We're very pleased to be able to offer this ability."

To restore a file saved on the network drive, right click on the current version of the file and choose the Properties option. In the window that pops up, click on the Previous Versions tab. This will bring up a list of previous versions. Once you have determined which file to restore, highlight that file and click on either the Copy or Restore buttons. A full description of the process is available
here.

This only works for files saved to the network drive. The network drive is backed up three times a day, and each backup is saved for about a month. Anything older than one month will need to follow the
current file restore process. There is no way to restore files saved to your desktop or hard drive.

If you don't find the needed file through this process, you can still request a file restore through a
Help Track ticket.

"We hope the new method of file restoration will save you time," says Sean Sink of the SLAC Windows Infrastructure Group. "But if you have difficulty with the process, you can still feel free to contact the Help Desk."