I have just heard that the plan is to include a new and much improved - SFR feature in VSC 6.2, which at this point is targeted for 2HCY2016.
But in the meantime:
In VSC 5.0 etc. the alternative solution (for Windows) is:
VSC has a Mount feature. Mount a backup for the VM. This mounts the Datastores from the Backup.
Attach a VMDK to the VM (where the file needs to be restored), from the mounted (Datastore) using the ‘Add Existing Disk Option’ in Edit VM settings.
VCenter will prompt you to assign a different disk uuid for the newly attached Disk, accept that option.
Within the Windows Guest (this one’s for W2012R2) , System and Security->Administrative Tools->Computer Management->Disk Management, you’ll see the newly added disk in an offline state.
Right click and bring it online, a drive letter will be assigned.
You can now restore the file using Windows Explorer.
Once the file is restored, you can remove the newly attached hard disk, and unmount the backup as a part of the clean up.
While this is not as elegant as having Admin-Assisted/ Self-Service/ Session-bound/Auto-Cleanup SFR, circa 4.2.X, it works across all Windows OSes. I’ve also attached the SFR document which describes the steps I’ve listed above with way more detail.
See Attachment, and below links ..., a few blogs on SFR steps on Linux using the VSC Mount featureb
http://ntptest.typepad.com/getvirtical/2011/02/smvi-single-file-recovery-with-linux.html
And
http://community.netapp.com/t5/Virtualization-and-Cloud-Articles-and-Resources/VMware-Single-File-Recovery-with-NetApp-NFS-datastores/ta-p/85290
Hope this helps.
