The resistivity of vanadium dioxide (VO2) decreased by over one order of magnitude upon localized illumination with x rays at room temperature. Despite this reduction, the structure remained in the monoclinic phase and had no signature of the high-temperature tetragonal phase that is usually associated with the lower resistance. Once illumination ceased, relaxation to the insulating state took tens of hours near room temperature. However, a full recovery of the insulating state was achieved within minutes by thermal cycling. We show that this behavior is consistent with random local-potential fluctuations and random distribution of discrete recombination sites used to model residual photoconductivity. © 2014 American Physical Society.