When Microsoft made the decision to take Windows Server 2003 as a starting point for Windows Home Server they had to make it more user friendly for your “average” home user. For example, the Console allows limited access to essential server functionality and management, and is there to stop potentally damaging fiddling under the hood. Add-ins allow the ability to design and install specific functionality without the need to directly access the server and wizards make adding and removing multiple drives a breeze for the non technical.
But a feature that users perhaps expected to have but do not have is the familiar Recycle Bin. The Recycle Bin has never been supported for use on networked drives anyway. Even though it sits on your server’s desktop, if you access it by remote desktop, it won’t save your files for restoring at a later stage. So how do you go about retrieving deleted files from your home server?
Well now you can, almost, relax. Diskeeper Corporation, creators of Diskeeper Home Server Edition, has informed WGS that it has successfully tested Undelete 2009 Server Edition for use with Windows Home Server.
Diskeeper Undelete Server Edition is enterprise software for Windows Server 2003/2008 – it’s been around for a while, but at $499 a go it’s not exactly cheap.
Rumour has it that Diskeeper is preparing a Windows Home Server version of Diskeeper Undelete with pricing around that of the current Undelete 2009 Pro product. The personal home use license is currently $59.95 (£57.07). The product may be available at the end of 2008.
Diskeeper Undelete2009 for Windows Server contains a whole suite of programs;
Enhanced Emergency Undelete
Undelete can recover files deleted before Undelete was installed, provided they haven’t been overwritten. Undelete 2009 will save you time with support by also recreating the original folder paths, making reorganizing your restored files a snap.
Recovery Bin
The Recovery Bin catches all files no matter how they were deleted, allowing instant recovery with just a few clicks of the mouse. The Recovery Bin mimics the directory structure of your disk and includes a powerful search function, making it easy to find and recover files. Undelete 2009 adjusts the Recovery Bin to your volume’s available
Version Recovery
Undelete automatically captures old versions of Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), allowing recovery of earlier, saved-over versions. Version Recovery is integrated with Windows Explorer-simply right-click on a file to recover earlier versions. New! Undelete now supports versioning for new file formats of Microsoft Office 2007 Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
Undelete Desktop Client
With the Undelete Desktop Client, users of computers attached to your servers can recover their own files directly from server Recovery Bins. The Desktop Client can be pushed out to client systems by Undelete Server. Each Undelete 2009 Server license now includes 10 licenses of the Undelete Desktop Client.
SecureDelete® 2.0
With SecureDelete 2.0 enabled, files that are purged from the recovery bin are overwritten with random data using a methodology developed for the National Security Agency. Version 2.0 of this popular feature introduces the ability to securely delete files immediately (as they are deleted) and overwrite a volume’s free space*, which may contain past remnants of confidential data.
Powerful Search Functionality
The Recovery Bin displays information about each deleted file including the file owner, the date and time the file was deleted, and the account used to delete the file.
Network File Protection
With Undelete Desktop Client or Pro Edition installed on network clients, your users can connect to the Undelete Server Edition Recovery Bins installed on the network file servers and restore their own deleted or saved-over MS Office files. NTFS security is fully supported.
This level of functionality for a use on a home server may be overkill and it is clear that this is a tool aimed at Windows Server administrators. This product hs has to be installed and run directly on the WHS via remote desktop connection.
Diskeeper sent us a copy of Undelete 2009 Server Edition for evaluation. The installation onto home server was straightforward using a remote desktop connection and I was soon able to start up the application.
To allow Diskeeper Undelete to work across a network some changes need to be made to Windows Firewall. If you are not happy for these to be made automatically then they can be set up manually later.
You can allow Undelete to be enabled on all hard drives attached to the home server or to manually protect them later.
Once you’ve stated where you wish Diskeeper to be installed on your WHS, installation can proceed.
Installation complete.
The inevitable restart!
After going back into the home server via remote desktop Undelete is available through the Programs menu.
Within the Undelete window the left pane is given over to folders that are currently being monitored or folders from which a file has been deleted. The deleted files are displayed in the right hand pane. Unlike the standard Windows Recycle Bin, Undelete2009 allows the user to browse easily to the exact folder from where the file was deleted. A powerful search facility can be used to find deleted files by name, date deleted and by file owner. Once found a file can be quickly restored back to its original location by a simple right mouse click on the file and then clicking on restore.
Undelete 2009 has many powerful features that will be useful to a professional server administrator, but are too advanced for the average home server owner. However, what I can sayis that it does what its says it does and that is recover deleted files!!
You can buy Undelete 2009 Pro Edition now and install it on your home server, but note that it is unsupported for use with Windows Home Server. If, and when, Diskeeper produce a Windows Home Server version of Undelete I will be certainly be recommending it in my top ten add-ins.
More Info: Undelete 2009
10. October 2008 at 12:09 pm
Much of this was handled by Volume Shadow Copy service on WHS. This was really useful- does anyone know why it was turned off on PP1 and if it’s safe to enable it?
11. October 2008 at 2:18 pm
I’m excited – $59.00 for my recycle bin back…
12. October 2008 at 7:21 am
I bought it tonight, used remote desktop to try to install it and got no where quick.
“This version of Undelete is not supported on this version of Windows. See the txt for supported versions. Setup will now close.”
Not happy at all!!
I’m running an HP MediaSmart with WHS. Am I doing something wrong?
15. October 2008 at 11:23 am
hi mark, i have enabled VSS, but seem to be having issues when recovering files. has anybody been able to get it working ?
28. October 2008 at 6:52 pm
As for VSS, it is a great feature, but only captures occasional snapshots of changes (typically twice a day) so there is a wide gap for data loss when you make numerous changes to a file throughout the day, or create and then delete files in between those snapshots. Depending on what you do with your system, Undelete may be a good compliment to VSS.
Hi Kansas,
Undelete Pro will not install on WHS. My apologies to Andrew if we stated this incorrectly. We hope to have a WHS solution soon. I suggest you contact Diskeeper and request a refund.
Michael
Undelete Product Manager
Diskeeper Corporation
5. November 2008 at 4:57 am
@Michael Materie -
Thanks Michael, I received my refund and will anxiously await the WHS version
2. March 2009 at 9:32 am
Is there any update on the availability of the WHS Undelete edition?
6. March 2009 at 5:19 am
@Stephen Parker -
We have it planned for an April-ish release. Pricing will be around what Pro edition sells for and include 10 Desktop Client licenses. I’ll work with the WGS guys to work out a discount for WGS followers.
6. March 2009 at 7:34 am
@Michael – Great news, although by “April-ish” i’m assuming you mean May/June
) If you need any RC testers then don’t hesitate to shout out
6. March 2009 at 2:55 pm
That’s great news! I’ve been waiting for the WHS edition
24. March 2009 at 5:30 pm
Michael, Can you elaborate a little more on how Version Recovery works? I am interestead to see if there needs to be something installed on the client side.
Thanks in advance!
2. April 2009 at 11:05 pm
Given a full queue, April-ish is looking May-ish at this time.
3. April 2009 at 7:46 am
Have to smile to myself given my previous comment, but still great news that you are “getting there”. Once again offer extended if RC testing required.
3. April 2009 at 5:00 pm
My apologies for the verbosity if you already know some of this:
When you open an Office app (PowerPoint, Word, Excel) you are actually creating a new duplicate copy of the file for editing and for every save you do on that file you create separate temporary file iterations (each with a unique name). You can view these temp file if you select to show Hidden Files and Folders in Explorer’s Folder Options-View tab. All of these temp iterations are deleted by the system when you closed the handle to that file. At that time they are captured by the Undelete filter driver. The value of the Versioning feature for MS Office is a nice Explorer-integrated UI that groups all these iterations under the original file name (instead of seperately named file iterations like the unituitive “~WRL1791.tmp” and ~WRL3263.tmp, etc… which would be difficult to associate all with that same original file called Report.doc). That Explorer tie-in allows you to then quickly right-click on the original file and preview each and every iteration of it (each copy has it’s own Time Stamp when overwritten, the name of the User who overwrote the file and more, to help you trach down the version you need) and then recover that file version(s). Technically Undelete will actually capture versions of files for ANY App that creates a duplicate of the file when you open it for editing – recovery is simply more intuitive for the MS Office apps we have added direct support for. The “filter driver” part of Undelete HomeServer would be installed on WHS. The software will also come with 10 “Desktop Client” licenses which will be installed on your Windows desktops/laptops and provide you the user interfaces (including that Explorer-integration and a remote browse and search UI) to recover versions, deleted files, etc…
3. April 2009 at 5:18 pm
@Michael Materie – Thank you very much, I figured it was something along those lines but I am writing a brief as well as implementing the product (as a much larger product) so being able to let my boss and exec staff know how the “magic” works is helpful.
3. April 2009 at 5:19 pm
@Stephen Parker – Yup, I was smiling when I read this comment as well.
9. November 2009 at 1:45 am
Any updates?
April/ May passed a while ago…
21. January 2010 at 12:34 am
still no update about this product or any other similar software?