How to increase VSS Shadow Copy Limit

Summary

In certain situations it is required to increase the Microsoft VSS Shadow Copy Limit, the steps below describe how to accomplish this.

Step By Step

1. Go to Start and then Computer to bring up a Windows Explorer view of the system.  You should see the hard drives belonging to the machine listed
2. Left-click on any hard drive once to select it then right-click on that drive.  Select Configure Shadow Copies... from the right-click menu.  This should bring up the Shadow Copies window.
3. In the Shadow Copies window, notice how, if the Used field is blank, there is no storage space currently allocated.  Click on the volume for which you want to allocate shadow copy storage and hit Settings.

4. In the Settings window, you can choose which volume the storage area will be put on as well as the maximum size of the storage area.  If you believe you need more space, you can increase the size further or set the maximum size to "No limit," however, if shadow copies are being made automatically by Windows or by another program, this may lead to the drive filling up with shadow copies.  Once you have configured it to the setting required. hit OK.
   
   

5. You should now see a "0 bytes on..." entry under the Used field.  If you do, click on OK to finish the process.