System Restore - Comments Page 1

I am running Windows 2000 and do not have SYSTEM RESTORE. What do you suggest? Many thanks........

EDITOR'S NOTE: W2K is getting rather old and creaky. My best advice is to hold out a little while longer and then jump on WIndows Vista when it's released.

You neglected to say which versions of Windows your advice applies to. I am using Windows 98SE, where the facility does not exist. (I will not downgrade to a more recent Windows version.)

EDITOR'S NOTE: I understand the sentiment, but I have to disagree with the logic. MS no longer supplies fixes and security updates for W98, so you may be exposed to all manner of malware ills. System Restore was introduced with WinME.

About a year ago, we installed QB POS on my wife's computer at her yarn shop. A couple of months later, I noticed a problem with Norton Security Suite not updating. I was able to determine a restore point and selected that point (a day before POS was installed- oops). The process got 99% complete and informed me that it could not complete the process. So I said "OK just put it back where it was." It got to 99% and said no can do either. After 4.5 hours with Microsoft and no solution, we called QB POS tech support. It took two hours but we were able to get all programs up and running again. Had to reinstall Norton. Bottom line - Restore is better than no tool, but nothing is 100% :) ! BTW, great stuff with "Ask Bob Rankin".

I have Windows ME. My System Restore seems to stop making Restore points unless I periodically start the program. When I really needed it, it had stopped working altogether.

The downside to system restore is that it eats up disk space. I try to remember to delete old system restore points periodically (obviously NOT just after installing or updating software) and usually recoup 1GB plus of disk space each time. This is insignificant on my main PC but noticable on my laptop with a 30GB disk.

EDITOR'S NOTE: System Restore is supposed to limit disk usage to 12% of the disk...

I, too have a computer running Windows ME. My system restore does not work. Each time I select a point in time and attempt the restore, I get an error message saying that it can't be done! I also have viruses which have been detected in the Restore files which I cannot get rid of, even though I've tried turning off the restore feature. It's extremely frustrating! Any suggestions?

EDITOR'S NOTE: WinME is quite old, as far as operating systems go. Might be time for a new computer too?

I have Windows XP Pro SP 2 and I find that System restore is the WORST tool Microsoft has ever made. I only had to use it ten times in two years, and every time I got a message saying "System Restore could not restore yout system to the previous point. No changes were made.". I learnt my lesson by making sure I don't have any viruses, spyware, adware, or any problem with my system what-so-ever and the doing a complete hard drive back-up, one partition at a time. That way, when there's something wrong with Windows XP after a bad install and System Restore does nothing, I install the back-up of Windows that I made.

Where are restore points saved, and do they take up actual disk space? If so, if I feel I have too many restore points, can I go in and manually delete them?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, they do take up disk space. But you can control what portion of the disk is available for restore points. I posted earlier that the default was 12%, but I just checked mine and it's set at 7%. Not sure if I ever changed the default or not...

At first, System Restore sounds like a great utilitiy. But, after you work with it a few times, you realize that it is not all that great. Novices tend to not have it configured right. The only way that System Restore is really worth anything, is if you are "techie" enough to configure, maintain and use it. But, if you are that "techie", there are better alternatives. I kill it like it's a plague. Another point, if you restore back to a point, you also lose everything else that you have done since then (including ridding of any viruses if you had one - THEY CAN BE SAVED AND RESTORED TOO!). I have found many friends' computers where it was eating up over half of their resources. In my almost 20 years working with computers, there was always a better way - e.g,. saving registry keys and restoring them. The ONLY real solution is for people to learn how to operate and maintain their computer. If you feel the need to restore, you may be better off re-installing your operating system.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Val, what exactly do you mean by configuring System Restore? Aside from setting the percentage of disk space it can use, what other things can you do?

For those that do not know it, Win98 has the same built-in feature. If you want to restore your system: Reboot and keep the Ctrl key held down until you see a menu including Normal (1), Safe (3), and Command Line Prompt (5). Choose Command Line Prompt by hitting the 5 key on keyboard. At the C:\ prompt, type in: scanreg /restore and press Enter. The computer should present a list of dates.
Choose the most recent date before you had problems and hit Restore. From there everything should work fine.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Sounds like this just restores a snapshot of the Registry. Will it also remove recently installed software like System Restore does?