Leslie,
1. At a run command, type "services.msc" without the quotes. Enter will open the services window. Alternatively, you can access from Administrative Tools --> Services. Make sure the Volume Shadow Copy service is started is on manual mode.
2. Go to My Computer on server. Right click and drive, i.e. C:\ and choose Properties. Select Shadow Copes tab. From there it is rather intuitive. FYI: You can set any drive from within the same window. It makes 64 copies. I generally wouldn't set to less than four hours, but you can.
3. Remember, you do the settings on the entire drive, but you can only make copies of SHARED FOLDERS.
4. FYI: You cannot access the copies from the server. You must access from across the network. So, from any workstation, you can go to My Network Places, browse to the server, browse to the folder, right-click and choose the Previous Versions.
5. Personally, even though Adam does it and I used it, I wouldn't recommend using the Mirra on the server. I can't find any information on it, but I would be concerned that the auto backup of the Mirra would interfere with VSS.
Once, you make sure VSS is enabled by right clicking on a drive on the server (from the server), you can look for previous versions from an XP machine on the network to insure it is working.
This is an added benefit of VSS. VSS is intended to make sure everything is already backed up individually including databases so that when your backup runs at night, it backs up the shadow copies. This is in case it can't backup open or accessed databases during the backup. (A good reason to make sure users log off their computers rather than just lock them when they leave)
Your IT guy can't tell you everything, but why he wouldn't let you know about VSS is beyond me. I would call him and ask if he even knows what VSS is. Make sure he answers before he has time to Google it.
Hope this helps.
