Resolved System restore vs. registry backup

In an effort to reduce space on my C partition, I have limited the amount of space system restore takes up. I see now that there are only three restore points (after I check the box to show more restore points). One from the fall of 2011, which must have been when I first bought this laptop, and two from within the last week or two.

So there are only 2 that would make any sense for me to use; typically if I have a problem, by the time I realize I need to go to a system restore point, its been more than a week or two that I've tried troubleshooting the problem--in other words, just having the last week of restore points won't help much.

It would be ideal if we could schedule these--every month or so, or at least, tell windows which ones to delete when it does that.

(1) At any rate, if I simply backed up the registry--would that be the same as a restore point?

(2) If so, could I simply make registry backups and then not worry about restore points altogether?

 

You make a good point here.

I would think that a system restore point involves more than just a registry backup considering how large the restore point files can be.

On XP, I use a combination of system restore and a program called ERUNT. The registry backup files ERUNT creates is about 50 mb in size. I have not tried this program with Windows 7, but there is an FAQ that addresses this issue in case you want to try the backup utility. I've noticed that some of the virus removing programs used in the malware forum, here, tend to favor ERUNT over system restore.

 

As far as simply restoring the entire registry from a backup from 30-60 days prior--what would happen to keys about programs that have been uninstalled--I mean, that wouldn't screw up the registry, would it?

 

In my opinion, yes, I think it could possibly screw up the registry to go that far back without using system restore. I don't keep ERUNT backup files on my XP machine older than 30 days. I rarely use the program unless system restore fails to do the job, or I if I just recently uninstalled a new program that I did not like.

 

Well the only reason for keeping a registry backup would be for a long-term backup. If it wouldn't work longer than 30 days, I'd probably be best off not doing the backups. I'll see if I can expand the system volume file size a bit....besides, this is all saving me a reformat anyways. If I reformat, I can allocate enough space on my C partition so that this wouldn't ever be a problem again.

 

My suggestion would be to make periodic images of your C drive just in case system restore can't fix a corrupted operating system. My brother's system became infected by a virus, and he asked me to wipe the system clean and start over, but, instead, I was able to restore XP with image files that I created months before.

It sure made my job a lot easier.