Setup Shadow Copies on Windows 10

Shadow copies are indispensable. They allow you to almost instantly recover a changed or deleted file/folder.  The easy setup isn't built into Windows 10 as it is in Windows Server, but setting it up only takes a few minutes and you will benefit from it instantly.

First, go to services, change the Volume Shadow Copy service startup type from Manual to Automatic, then start the service.

Then create a new Basic scheduled task.  Set it to run daily.  

The command is:

c:\Windows\System32\wbem\wmic.exe

The command arguments are:

shadowcopy call create Volume=C:\

Then edit your new task.  Set it to Run whether the user is logged on or not, and to run with highest privs.

Edit the Triggers, and set "Repeat Task every: " and enter 8 hours or so.

Then do a test run of the task to make sure it works (right-click, Run).  The task runs and completes instantly though Task Scheduler shows it as 'Running' for a while. Ignore that.

Open File Explorer, and right-click on your Documents folder, and you'll see a new option to "Recover Previous Versions".  Click on it, and you should see the new snapshot you just created.

Old shadow copies will be deleted automatically.  No deletion task or cleanup task needs to be scheduled.  By default the OS will limit shadow copy disk usage to 10% of disk space.