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Where are version history documents stored?

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011 8:06 AM | 1 vote

Hello

I can access a path of a sharepoint folder directly with the windows explorer, like this:

[\intra.mysite.com\DavWWWRoot\sites\ac\mysite\folder\](file://\intra.mysite.com\DavWWWRoot\sites\ac\mysite\folder)

I can view the actual documents inside the folder, for example document.docx

After i enable the version history for this folder, where are the backup documents stored, and can i access them also directly by entering the address like above?

 

All replies (4)

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 5:32 PM ✅Answered | 3 votes

SharePoint has two methods for linking to documents - canonical path and the revision path.if you are using canonical path then you will get current version of the document.If you have more than one version of the same document then you could use revision path to access the document.

** Canonical path **

http://yoursite/yoursubsite/_vti_history/512/Documents/Book1.xlsx

**** revision paths****

You could access the previous version document like following.

http://yoursite/yoursubsite/_vti_history/512/Documents/Book1.xlsx (Accessing version 1.0)

One thing to note if you have only one version of the document then this will give 404 page not found error.

_vti_history - Virtual directory

512 - See the following table then you could understa

******** “1” = version “0.1“

   http://yoursite/yoursubsite/_vti_history/1/Documents/Book1.xlsx

 “2” = version “0.2“

  http://yoursite/yoursubsite/_vti_history/2/Documents/Book1.xlsx

 “512” = version “1.0“

http://yoursite/yoursubsite/_vti_history/512/Documents/Book1.xls

 “1025” = version “2.1“

http://yoursite/yoursubsite/_vti_history/1025/Documents/Book1.xls

 

Formula : Major Version * 512 + Minor Version

Read http://blogs.msdn.com/b/roberthorvick/archive/2007/01/04/wss-rant-linking-to-the-latest-version-of-a-sharepoint-document-considered-harmful-lessons-6-and-7.aspx

Content Database

Sharepoint Store all the information in SQL Server Database.

You could see content databases by

1. GoTo Sharepoint Central Administration

2. GoTo Application Management

3. GoTo DataBase Section

4. Click on Manage Content DataBase

5. In Manage Content DataBase Select your Application  you could see the content database attached to it.

 

 

 

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 8:20 AM | 1 vote

they are stored in contentDB and can only be restored as current version but can not be accessed directly via a urlBest Regards, Ashutosh | My Blog Site

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 6:13 AM

Thanks for the answer.

Is this contentDB a single file in somewhere in sharepoint?

 

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 4:08 PM

It is the SQL Server database - not a file.

IIRC, it does not store complete files for all the old versions.  Instead, it keeps the diff history, so that it can reconstruct any version.  More efficient from a storage point of view.