Frustrating Situation - delete across network STUPID MS

[Shingi]

Hi Guys,

Not sure if this belongs here but I'll give it a shot if it's wrong section mod please move it to correct section.

Here is my situation. I am running Windows Server 08 on my workplace. We are an insurance business and we have a share drive from the server that that gives all user all rights, edit, delete, write, read within that folder. My problem is the delete across the network drive. On the share drive(from server) if a user(another computer on the network - not the server) accidentally deletes the file then it's gone. It doesn't go into the server's recycling bin. Now I know what you are going to say, use a backup. We do have a backup, problem is the backup is every night. Mainly our problem is user error. Accidental delete happens from time to time because the share drive is design like that but sometimes when you delete a file by accident you want to be able to just grab it back from recycle bin instead of having to restore from yesterdays compress tape backup which takes too long and you lose all the changes that was made to that file since backup. Again problem is user accidental delete combine with inefficiency/time recovery from backup.

I have a synology box at home which is a nas drive, but it is linux base and it does exactly what I want except can't figure out how to make windows do it. On the synology; if i delete a file on the nas box remotely from another computer it would go into the nas recycling bin instead of just gone. Why doesn't windows do this even when recyle bin is turned on from the server. Just a few google searches found tons of frustration on this issue as to why windows doesn't enable/turn it on.

My question and also some suggestions from other people leads me to ask this question for you programmers. Someone told me I could try to see if someone could program an network delete "interrupt request" and somehow implement it on the server at core level; so that anytime someone deletes a file on the server via remote computer, it would treat it just like you are physicall in front of the server and actually deleting it so that it would go into recycling bin instead of flat out gone.

What do you guys think? How to get around this issue. Oh, BTW I already explore shadow copy - not efficient - share-point too slow and inefficient. I just want plain windows share drive so we can edit file, changes, delete when it's not needed, and in case accidentally delete, I want to be able to remotely log-in server and drag it out of recycling bin and back on share drive in less than 2 minutes.

I don't know but I think it's stupid on MS end not to have this feature when small linux box like synology has it. Frustrates me.

Can someone program a change in the core OS to allow this or what can we do, I am not interested in a third party software with different environment as that takes resources is not user friendly. Only thing I can think of is an old school program by Nortons. It's call rescue disk, I vaguely recall that It does set it's own recycling bin where delete files would go, but I don't know if it would even save it when delete from across network.

ALL help is greatly appreciated.

Andy

Moved to Operating Systems
Markbnj
Programming mod

 

[Ken g6]

Simple suggestion:

1. Create a folder on the share, called "Recycle Bin".
2. Deny delete permission to most users.
3. Tell users to move files to be deleted to the "Recycle Bin".
4. Manually delete files from the "Recycle Bin" folder on a regular basis, or set up a script to do it.

 

[Train]

You could use some sort of document repository instead of a standard file share.

That way files are stored on a version basis, can't tell you how many offices I've seen overwrite important daa just by clicking save after someone else saved changes.

I'm sure there is a good design decision for not moving network deleted files to the recycle bin. Maybe because the bin is by default NOT shared. Come to think of it I'm not even sure that would be possible. On a server this could chew up disk space and eventually fill up a disk because users would have no way to completely remove them.

 

[debian0001]

Can't you do something with Shadow Copy?

 

[Shingi]

Ken g6 - what you said make sense but telling the user to move files to recyclin bin is also problematic in itself as most users that want to delete the file will forget to move the file instead press the delete key. There is however one way to I think it could be done with your suggestion. That is to remove delete permission but allow move permission, athough if I don't lock the recycle folder, then I couldn't move the file to that folder so still a downfall unless i'm missing something.

 

[Shingi]

still need answers, anyone out there is welcome to school me on this.

 

[Train]

If you want to go the programming route, here's something I might cosider.

Hook into the file system and capture the delete event. In .Net there is the FileSystemWatcher class. Capture the delete event, make a copy of the file and put it into a "recycle bin" folder of your choosing, be sure to append a date and time stamp at the end of the file name for when the same file gets deleted more than once, that way you'll have a copy of each version, not just the last. Make the recycle bin folder read only via the share.

The nice thing about this solution is you don't have to re-train your users, and keep reminding them the 1,000 times they forget or screw something up. They just keep doing what they normally do, and when they screw up, they have a read-only folder there to save their asses.

 

[cboath]

If you enable shadow copy/previous versions on the server, you should be able to do what you're after I believe.

 

[Nothinman]

Shadow copies are the correct answer. How is it too inefficient for you?

 

[cboath]

If anything, you'd think it'd be much better as you can set it to keep multiple versions. That way you can recover not just deleted files, but previous versions of still existing files as well.

 

[Nothinman]

If anything, you'd think it'd be much better as you can set it to keep multiple versions. That way you can recover not just deleted files, but previous versions of still existing files as well.

Exactly and you can limit the disk space and put the snapshots on a separate disk to minimize the effect. The only problem I can see is trying to recover file types that don't deal with snapshots well like mdf/ldf files from SQL Server.

 

[Shingi]

Train,

I think you hit the nail on the head. I don't need the hassle of volume copy, I simply just want to be able to get an accidentally delete file back just like when you're on your computer and you delete something and it went to recycle bin. Reason is because again we already have nightly backups. I want to also expand to clarify if I forgot in the first post that we are not running anything complex like sql server or anything like that. It is just plain files, mostly pdf's and some tax files. Can anyone elaborate on what Train just said, because I"m not a programmer and I would need a little bit more specific so that I can probably get someone at the university to write the event for me or if simple enough I will try it myself. I'm not completely illiterate but I wouldn't say I'm a programmer either.

 

[Nothinman]

Train,

I think you hit the nail on the head. I don't need the hassle of volume copy, I simply just want to be able to get an accidentally delete file back just like when you're on your computer and you delete something and it went to recycle bin. Reason is because again we already have nightly backups. I want to also expand to clarify if I forgot in the first post that we are not running anything complex like sql server or anything like that. It is just plain files, mostly pdf's and some tax files. Can anyone elaborate on what Train just said, because I"m not a programmer and I would need a little bit more specific so that I can probably get someone at the university to write the event for me or if simple enough I will try it myself. I'm not completely illiterate but I wouldn't say I'm a programmer either.

Shadow copies are exactly what you want and aren't a hassle at all, you can even show your users how to use the Previous Versions tab in explorer to recover stuff on their own if you want. Seriously, it's the simplest and most transparent solution you'll find.

Having nightly backups is a good thing, but ust because you have backups doesn't mean you shouldn't use Shadow Copies. Having several days of Previous Versions means you won't have to touch those backups unless you need a version of a file outside that range and having to go to backups for a file is a much bigger hassle, otherwise you wouldn't have started this thread.

 

[Shingi]

I will have to look more into shadow copy. Can you just set shadow copy on one folder only? Really that is all we need.

 

[cboath]

I believe you can. It's been since Server 2003 that I last used it, but my recollection was that you can enable it for the drive and then determine what folders make use of it.

That machine ran a whopping p3-733 on 1gb of ram WELL past it's time (like, after nehalem's came out) on it didn't affect performance.

 

[Nothinman]

I will have to look more into shadow copy. Can you just set shadow copy on one folder only? Really that is all we need.

No, it's per-volume.