F (Volume Shadow Copy Service)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

file group component

A group of files other than those used as a database and defined by a writer as needing to be handled as a unit during backup and restore operations. See also component, database component.

file set

The combination of a path, file specification, and recursive flag describing one of a file or group of files. For example, files are added to components in file sets.

Unless otherwise indicated, a file set's paths are standard Windows paths and can contain environment variables (for example, %SystemRoot%) but cannot contain wildcard characters. There is no requirement that the path end with a backslash ("\"). It is up to applications that retrieve this information to check it.

The file specification contained in a file set indicates the name of the file or files it includes. This file specification cannot contain directory specifications (for example, no backslashes) but can contain the ? and * wildcard characters.

The recursive tag is a Boolean specifying whether the file set's path should be treated as a only a single directory or if it indicates a hierarchy of directories to be traversed recursively. The Boolean is true if the path is treated as a hierarchy of directories to be traversed recursively, or false if not.

Information about a file set is returned through instances of the IVssWMFiledesc interface, and can contain additional information includes alternate paths, alternate location mappings, and file-level schema support settings.

See also alternate path, alternate location mapping, component, file specification.

file specification

Used to match files within a directory and to define a file set. It cannot contain directory specifications (for example, no backslashes) but it can contain the ? and * wildcard characters.

File Replication Service

Used to replicate system files in a redundant system volume (SysVol) directory to support file system survivability, particularly for distributed file systems.

freeze

A period of time during the shadow copy creation process when all writers have flushed their writes to the volumes and are not initiating additional writes.

Freeze event

A VSS event indicating that a shadow copy freeze is in progress. See also freeze, shadow copy.

front-end level applications

Indicates the point at which a writer is notified of a freeze by VSS. Writers that were initialized as front-end level applications are notified prior to writers initialized either as back-end level applications or as system-level applications. See also application level, back-end level applications, system-level applications, writer.