View previous versions of document without restoring from document library.

Question

View previous versions of document without restoring from document library.

adil 1,431

Hi,

When Documents uploaded to SharePoint document history is created and when user view version history how to view previous versions of document without restoring it

Yanli Jiang - MSFT 31,671 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-03-07T06:51:24.9666667+00:00

Thanks for your question.

We are currently looking into this issue and will give you an update as soon as possible.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

2 answers

Your answer

Yanli Jiang - MSFT 31,671 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-03-07T06:51:24.9666667+00:00

Thanks for your question.

We are currently looking into this issue and will give you an update as soon as possible.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Answer 1

Hi @Yanli Jiang - MSFT ,

thanks for your reply and guidance. Our users tried this feature and encountered a problem. When opening an older version, a login mask appears and asks for a login name and password. After you have entered the access data, the login mask appears again. If you click on "Cancel", the login mask will be hidden and a backup copy of the corresponding version of the document will be opened. We use SharePoint 2019 Modern and Microsoft 365 for Office applications. Do you also see the login mask? Do you have an idea why this login mask is always displayed?

Answer 2

Yanli Jiang - MSFT 31,671 Microsoft External Staff

Hi @adil ,

Right click on the space between the item or document name and date, and then click Version History from the menu. You might need to scroll the menu to see Version History.

If you don't see Version History, click the ellipsis (...) in the dialog and then click Version History.

You'll see a list of versions of the file.

In the Version History dialog, hover next to the version you want view and click the down arrow on the right side to get a list of options.

Click View.

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For more information, please refer to:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/view-the-version-history-of-an-item-or-file-in-a-list-or-library-53262060-5092-424d-a50b-c798b0ec32b1

Update on 03/08/2023

Select one of the versions in the Version history window. Once selected, it will open in the native Microsoft application.

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NOTE: make sure you have office client.

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adil 1,431 Reputation points

2023-03-08T06:45:02.44+00:00

Hi, thanks for your replay but when i click view only i can see only version history of document but how can i really open the document that has previously edited? when i click the document it opens current version of document; and when i restore that version it replaced older version document and again new version created.
Yanli Jiang - MSFT 31,671 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-03-08T07:43:30.9266667+00:00

Hi ,

I have updated my answer.

Please have a check and feel free to comment here if you have any problem with this issue.
adil 1,431 Reputation points

2023-03-08T12:28:27.5166667+00:00

Hi thanks for your reply here we are opening office files from SharePoint 2019 to Office online server on premise is there any option available there to view Previous versions of document in office online server? and i also tried to open word document in word client and i went to File>history when i try to open previous version there is dialog box appear it says could not open document from SharePoint site
adil 1,431 Reputation points

2023-03-08T12:30:30.8733333+00:00

word client is connecting to SharePoint site but not able to open previous version document
Yanli Jiang - MSFT 31,671 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-03-10T07:21:01.4933333+00:00

Hi adil ,

Could you please tell me which version of office you are using?

I need to test in my environment.

Thank you!
adil 1,431 Reputation points

2023-03-12T12:18:15.8966667+00:00

Word 2016 (16.0.5383.1000) 64 Bit
adil 1,431 Reputation points

2023-03-20T13:45:33.5733333+00:00

Hi Any Update?
Yanli Jiang - MSFT 31,671 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2023-03-21T09:59:57.5466667+00:00

Hi adil,

I tested it in my environment and can't reproduce your problem, it works fine.

You can go to Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\LOGS folder to check why the issue happened.

Or you can create a new service request as an admin, and more professional will help you.

(Microsoft 365 admin center ->> Support ->> New service request)

Thanks for your understanding.
sundarun 0 Reputation points

2023-07-05T23:20:46.61+00:00

Clicking View only opens the document properties window with an hyperlink to Document ID, however clicking the Document ID from the properties window only opens the latest version of the document but not the previous version. I do not want to restore the previous version to see what the latest version looks like. This happens with the native Microsoft format documents suchas .docx
Colm Counihan (OG) 0 Reputation points

2023-09-08T08:55:41.73+00:00

I'm assuming that Yanli is testing on SharePoint Online (please confirm @Yanli Jiang - MSFT ) and NOT SE combined with Office 2016.

On my system , SharePoint SE and Office 2016 , if I try to view/open an earlier version of a document from the version history dialog , I get the same "sorry couldn't open....VTI_History/<document name>" that I saw with SharePoint 2013 and Office 2016. This feature stopped working in the year 2019, up until this point I could open earlier versions and even compare different versions of the same document within Office.

My understanding (at that time) was that Windows itself was the problem as it is unable to open those _VTI__history URLs. I hoped that in SE that the version history wasn't using those VTI_History URLs anymore.

It appears that the same thing is happening even after having upgraded to SE!

Same issue when trying to open versions from the history in Office.

I have a recollection that earlier versions of documents stored in SharePoint Online WILL open in Office.

the workaround (in SharePoint on premises , e.g. SE) for anyone looking to view what a document looked like in an earlier version without having to restore is to right click the link for the earlier version and select the option "save link as" , this enables you to download a copy of the document at specific version to your local machine.

Would appreciate any guidance from MSFT as to how we can configure the experience that we used to have when opening earlier versions (i.e. so we don't see this "sorry could not open.." message )

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View previous versions of document without restoring from document library.

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