Starting with Vista, Windows allows the recovering of
previous versions of files without a dedicated backup.
These previous versions are stored whenever a Restore
Point is made by the system or manually made by the
user from the System Protection tab of the System App
in the Control Panel.

These previous versions can be recovered in Vista and
Windows 7 by merely right clicking the target file and
choosing 'Restore previous versions.' However, the
feature is unavailable in Vista Home Basic and Home
Premium versions and all of Windows 8 versions, hence
the need for this program.

Vista Home Basic and Premium Previous Version File
Recoverer works with the other versions of Windows
Vista and Windows 7 as well, so if you find it easier
to use then right clicking on files in Explorer then
by all means do so. The application however rebuilds
the index each time you invoke it which is time
consuming. Windows however may also do the same thing
when displaying previous versions from the Context
Menu invocation.

A similar program to this one is Shadow Explorer. You
might find that program more comprehensive because it
exposes all previous versions of files in an Explorer-
like interface. However in contrast to Shadow
Explorer, the present program only returns previous
versions within its GUI window that are different from
your target file. Shadow Explorer requires you to
choose a Restore Point in date and time and look to
see if a previous version is actually different from
the file you are working with. Using Shadow Explorer
may end up to be more time consuming than using the
present program.

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