System Restore ?

As previously mentioned - just installed XP-home.

Been reading about ALL the so called features of XP ?

Of the many that have me confused - the "System Restore" is the most baffling.

Hopefully someone can direct me to a good comprehensive spot to get real information. From what I have read, it is a all or nothing thing ( enabled it gobbles up space - disabled and you lose all previous Restore Points ?)

Thanks to all that have replied to previous post , your expertise is appreciated.

regards:captjlddavis

 

Hi captjlddavis...

Here are some links for you to view...
- http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/systemrestore.mspx
- http://www.theeldergeek.com/system_restore.htm

There is also a file you can download from => http://camtech2000.net/Pages/System_Restore.htm which gives you a very good "Help" file on System Restore. I am using it myself.

 

dobhar,
Thanks, I had seen those links, and still have some doubts as to the use and/or need of the "feature ". The transition from 98x to XP is not an easy one for me. M$ seems to think it knows best and this opinion is sometimes different than mine.

It may take awhile.

regards:captjlddavis

 

captjlddavis...

I use System Restore for the main reason of "I like to play "...meaning I tweak this and that...I download freeware to see what it's like...etc...etc. SR is there as a backup for me to recover if I pooch my box..

Once a month I do a major cleanup (NAV, Ad-Aware, Spybot, remove unwanted program and files...etc) and if all OK I turn off SR to remove restore points and reboot. After windows up and running again I turn SR back on. I have a 20 GB C: Drive (Run 2 HDD's) with lots of free space so I don't mind the extra overhead of SR.

 

The short version - System Restore keeps track of system files (mostly OS files but a few others) and depending on the amount of space you allow it to use, will store an image of the exact state of those files at some number of earlier times.

The idea is that if you have a restore point made when things are working properly and something goes wrong (bad app loaded or similar) you can revert the system to a time when things were working. Note that this only works of the problem was with system files though. Documents, email, etc. are not tracked by SR.

Turning it off does dump all existing 'restore points' and is something you normally do when things are working but for some reason you don't trust earlier restore points. Most common on here is if you were eaten up with spyware, cleaned the system, but think you may still have the older bad stuff stored as part of a restore point. Then the most reasonable thing to do is get rid of the old stuff and right then - when things are good - create a new one.

Within it's limitations, SR works well. However and as various members on here have found out, you may not always be getting new restore points when you think you should. Safe practice is to force creation of a new one BEFORE you do something that potentially could cause problems so you have a place to go back to if needed.

I have never seen a good reason to allow SR to use all the space it wants because normally, you will have a recent restore point that is reliable and rarely want to revert back to the oldest ones.

I prefer a program from Symantec called GoBack since it creates an image of the entire drive and will revert everything. I keep it active and have turned system restore off. But GoBack is not free and SR is so there is a choice to be made.

 

As Newt suggests SR is a bit of a hog. Particularly if you have a large drive. The default size it allocates is 10% of the drive size. With large drives you would be advised to wind the usage slider back to somewhere around a few hundred MB's. 400 I'd say is ample for a number of restore points.

The adjustment can be made by right clicking My Computer and selecting System Restore. Using system properties. Am on a W2K machine at the mo so hope I'm not giving you too much wrong info?

System restore is in no way a perfect solution. But it has helped me more often than not. So a more robust backup regime is recommended along with it or in it's place before I'd consider turning it off.

As Kent says, SR is great for trying out software. I force (create) a restore point, install the said software. When I've finished having a short term look at it, I uninstall it using its uninstaller, or from Add/Remove. Then roll the system back to the created restore point. This way I can be reasonably sure that NO files/registry entries are left over from the programme except maybe an install folder in the Program Files folder that can be easily deleated.
When you've had a number of system changes since an install of a particular programme (like other installs) then SR shouldn't be used except for system errors that it may fix, as you will need to update and do other installs again.

 

Thanks to all:
Newt,
I have "Go Back" 2004 but have not installed it as yet. In reading the info, I noted the comment:
"Under certain circumstances Go Back safe points may be erased. This can happen when you optimize ....with Speed Disk.....download large files from the internet, scan your computer with NAV or wipe free space..... "

Have you experienced any problems ?

I thank all for your replies.

regards:captjlddavis

 

I have System Restore turned off. For me, it's a waste of time and space on the hard drive. I just use Drive Image.

 

Good moring folks. Thsnks for the reminder. I removed some software last night. It was iapparently installed improperly and did not work. It was late and I forgot about Restore Points.

Same will be taken care of as soon as I get out of here. It is needed because In cleaning the Reg I would bet there were at least 2 dozen references to the program. And some of them did not even point the the proper install point. Must have been installed more than once ?

A very good reason to turn SR off. But isn't the basic idea just about the same. Make new ones when changes are made ?

BillyBob

 

Mission accomplished.

BB

 

Sys Restore

 

Up_date:

XP- home HDD #1 = C (NTFS) HDD #2 = D & E (FAT32)
Disabled SR on C,D & E - this removed SR files from:
C:\System Volume Information\
D:\System Volume Information\
E:\System Volume Information\
As expected.
Did not remove SVI directories.

Enabled SR on all drives.
Created SR Point Manually
This created:
C:\System Volume Information\_restore{53E1A3A8-C077-425F-8476-161E01F1B376}\RP54\

Nothing was created on D & E drives - Is this the expected results ?
<drive>:\System Volume Information\with no sub directories ?

TIA

Regards:captjlddavis

 

One more thing about System Restore, especially for those who are using partitions or multiple hard drives: it is not necessary to enable SR on any other drive but the one your OS lives on. Since SR only affects Windows system files, it won't help "recover" any data, or be of any use on a partition or drive not containing an OS. vlsbyrpa, if the drive you are using is partitioned, could shut off SR on the drives w/o XP.

SR points are cumulative, too, so if a Restore Point becomes corrupt, each one following will also be "bad ". In my opinion, a week's worth of SR points is probably sufficient for most users. I wouldn't want to go back any further than a day or two, personally, because of all the changes I make on a daily basis. The fewer SR points, the less chance for a "flaky" one.

Johanna

 

Thank you Johanna

I agree. I can not se any sense to keeping any RPs over a day or two old. Not only do we make changes BUT WINDOWS itself may be making some also.

I did some MAJOR housecleaning yesterday ( Sunday ). Today is Monday and all seems to be OK. Why would I want to keep a Restore Point that was made on Saturday ? Especially when the Cleanup involved DOZENS of entries that pointed to non-existant items.

I also added some new game software.

Now have a new one made this About 10 minutes ago.

Also thanks for the info about SR on other than the dirve with the OS on it. Actually I have been running that way anyway.

BillyBob

 

Thanks Johanna,

The more I learn of SR, the less I know.
If SR is not valid on other drives, why is there an SVI placed there ?

I am starting to think that SR is alot of smoke and mirrors.

regards:captjlddavis

 

Some people "dual boot ", which means different partitions or hard drives have different OSes. I do not know why SR doesn't just default to the OS partition(s), but it doesn't. I suppose you could stretch XP over two partitions, but why would anyone want to?

SR is not like a drive image program (like Ghost or GoBack), and wasn't intended as such. It was meant for bad software installs, or a user's tweaking errors. If SR fails to restore the comp to an operable state, the next step is SFC (System File Check), which is done with the original XP cd.

Johanna

 

No !!! It is not a lot of smoke and mirrors. It is just that us users have to use a bit of common sense ( which Johanna seems to be blessed with plenty of )

If checked on and used porperly it can be ( and has been ) a life saver if we S>C>R>E>W up when doing regcleaning/tweaking.

The RB00x.cab files in 98 were just as good for the same purpose. And anyone that did much reg tweaking could be in SERIOUS trouble without RPs or the RB00x.cab files.

If an RB00x.cab file or a RP does need to be used it may result in some recleaning but it can ( and has ) at least put the machine back so that it will at least boot and/or run Windows.

One thing that I would like to know is;

Can a RP be restored from GOOD OLD DOS as it could in 98 ?

In 98 I could boot to the startup disk and do a SCANREG /Restore. OOPS !! Wait a bit. I believe that could only be done on my self modified SUD. But was not a standard SUD component.

But one thing is Users must not put full trust in Windows and must check manually at times to make sure the RPs are there BEFORE messing around.

BillyBob

 

Hello captjlddavis,

While SR is primarily for the OS, it does monitor "user" files. The exceptions off the top of my head are .txt & .doc - .jpg - .bmp files and probably other media files. Which is why the monitoring option for non-OS partitions/drives.

If you want to run an experiment - make a manual restore point, install a program, make a note of the contents of the resulting program file folder for that install. Then do a restore just prior to the install, again look at that folder. What's in that folder after the restore?

Info on what SR monitors http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/sr/sr/monitoring_the_system.asp will lead to file extensions covered.

Emphasis mine.


Regards - Chales