Purpose
The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is a set of COM interfaces that implements a framework to allow volume backups to be performed while applications on a system continue to write to the volumes.
Run-Time Requirements
VSS is supported on Microsoft Windows XP and later. For information about run-time requirements for a particular programming element, see the Requirements section of the documentation for that element.
Running 32-bit VSS applications under WOW64 is not supported; these applications must run as native 32-bit or 64-bit applications.
Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP: Running 32-bit VSS applications under WOW64 is supported.
Downloads
VSS is available in the Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK), which you can download from http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista.
Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP: VSS is available in the Volume Shadow Copy Service 7.2 SDK, which you can download from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0b4f56e4-0ccc-4626-826a-ed2c4c95c871.
In This Section
| Topic | Description | Overview | Describes the VSS object model, backup and restore strategies, and how to create VSS providers, requesters, and writers. |
Reference | Describes VSS classes, data types, enumerations, functions, interfaces, and structures. |
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Build date: 11/1/2007