That is not true.  You can use the "Previous Versions" tab via CIFS and it will use NTAP snapshots.  If you are not seeing this with Windows 7, you should open a support case.  I'm not sure if there are issues with Windows 7 specifically, but that's what support should know.

You DO have snapshots set to visible don't you?

Silly question but just checking.

It looks like the issue has nothing to do with NetApp as such and is fairly common across both Vista & Windows 7.

This (apparently) can be cured via registry fix:

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/170081-previous-versions-tab-restore-remove-properties.html

Regards,
Radek

OK, so here is a bunch of other pre-requisites on the OS side to make shadow copies enabled:

- [edit: this is irrelevant, as the whole point is to see NetApp snapshots, not the ones created by OS] System Restore must be turned on (definitely exists in Win7, not sure about 2008)
- Services:
    * Volume Shadow Copy
    * Server
    * TCP/IP NetBios Helper
    * Workstation

It seems that only Windows 7 is presenting this behavior. I am able to see the snapshots in all other flavors of Windows (including Server 2008). Now Windows 7 comes with it's on flavor of back up and previous version management but as far as I can tell those only work for local drives. The trick is that Windows 7 seem to be piping the "previous version" management all through that. I reported this issue when I was beta testing the OS but evidently it hasn't been addressed. We are planning on rolling out Windows 7 to all desktops next year and this will definitely be a deterrent.

Is netapp working to fix this problem?  We are just implementing our netapp server here and we are also looking at using windows 7 fairly soon (early next year)

Hello there.

did you received any solution yet?

having the same issue here.

Netapp Support sent me the following update for BURT 373136:

Title: Previous versions tab does not list entries on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Description: When Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 clients are used to access cifs shares on the storage system using SMB 1.0, the Previous versions tab on files or folder properties fails to list any previous versions.

Workaround: Enable SMB 2.0 on the Data Ontap versions that support SMB 2.0, to access previous versions using Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 clients.

There will be NO workaround for SMB 1.0, so SMB 2.0 will be a requirement for using the previous versions tab in these operating systems. I have not been able to verify this, as I am waiting for DataOntap 7.3.2 to become GA in the next days or weeks before upgrading to a SMB 2.0 compatible DO version.

Grtz,

Tom

Hi Andrew,

I have 7.3.2 running at a customer since the day it came out as GA. It is indeed confirmed that SMB 2.0 solves the Previous tab problem in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Off course just an upgrade is not enough, you also need to enable SMB 2.0 after the upgrade. I didn't have any further issues with SMB 2.0 enabled in a mixed environment of about 1000 clients running XP and 7 and also windows servers from 2000 till 2008 R2.

Grtz,

Tom

All versions of DataOntap that support SMB 2.0 will be fine. There is no specific fix in DO 7.3.2 to enable this.

The reason we waited for 7.3.2 is that this is the GD candidate, becoming GD in a few weeks.

Grtz,

Tom

Wonderful....good to know (thanks all for the confirmation...have been out with a serious case of twins for the last 2 weeks ).