LAWTECH GURU BLOG by Jeff Beard

More on Vista Shadow Copies & the Dreaded Index.dat Files

As I posted previously, by default Windows Vista enables shadows copies in Vista Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise editions. Shadow copies aid in recovering prior versions of files and are part of Vista's system restore points protection (which was also included in XP). So, basically, it appears the only way for a user to turn off shadow copies is to disable the system restore point protection. The problem is that the system restore point feature is incredibly helpful in troubleshooting and curing a system's ills by rolling back Vista's system files to a previous point in time. This is especially useful after installing a problematic program, driver, or update. In effect, turning off shadow copies is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Nice going Microsoft. If there's a way for enterprises to set a Windows policy to disable shadow copies but keep system restore points active, that would be a good solution. However, I haven't come across that yet.

Now on to Index.dat files. Windows has used these for many years as a way to store data histories, such as your complete URL browsing history. Since these Index.dat files were always kept open by Windows, it took special utilities such as the Index.dat Suite to view their contents, and even better, delete them at bootup before Windows fully loaded. It seems Microsoft has been aware of the problem and has changed the way that Windows and IE work to better clear out the contents of these tell-all files. This blog post from the Windows Core Networking MSDN blog has a greatly detailed discussion of how the WinInet's Index.dat files work under Vista, as well as this one about clearing tracks with IE7.

With e-discovery hot on everyone's plate with the new federal rules, these are additional reasons to have qualified and experienced professionals on your forensic team.