Getting  Along With Your Computer Column Archive

System Restore
By Cate Eales
Appeared September 20, 2007 on castanet.net

Turn back time with System Restore. And if that doesn't help, try ERUNT.

What is System Restore?
System Restore is a powerful time-travel tool! It monitors changes to your system and saves a snapshot of your system files before you make major changes. So if you have a conflict, an installation fails, or you just need a "do-over," System Restore --- often --- allows you to roll back your system to an earlier point in time without losing any data.

Is there a downside to that?
In fact System Restore works as advertised, most of the time, when it's properly configured and when it's turned on. More about that later, but first let's look at what System Restore doesn't do.

System Restore doesn't back up or restore your documents or your email. Not a week goes by that I don't hear from a client or a reader, "I lost my email and System Restore didn't work." By design System Restore leaves that stuff alone. That is so you can restore your system without killing your documents and your email. If you have a problem involving lost or corrupted email or documents, System Restore is not going to help you.

System Restore, despite Microsoft's sunny proclamations, does not always completely restore your system to a squeaky clean state. If you install a program and something terrible happens, you can use System Restore to try to get out of trouble. But System Restore will probably not completely erase or uninstall the program that caused the problem in the first place, and you're still going to have to dig out the vestiges of the troublemaker. Also, if you have a virus, and restore your system to a point in time where you already had a virus...you still have a virus!

System Restore is not the same thing as a "Restore Disk" which comes with computers these days instead of a Windows XP or Vista disk. A "Restore Disk" will roll back your computer ---- including killing off your documents and emails --- to the state it was in when it left the factory. That's not what we're talking about here.

How do I use System Restore?
First, make sure it's turned on:

Make sure there's no check in the "Turn off System Restore" box, and that the Status box says "Monitoring."

Next, we need to tweak the amount of space for System Restore.

System Restore creates a restore point when you first turn on the computer, after every 10 hours of continuous operation, or after 24 hours if there haven't been 10 continuous hour of use. It also creates a restore point every time Windows Update installs something, and every time you install any software with an installer program that System Restore recognizes. Finally, System Restore will create a restore point if you ask it to.

Even so, you probably don't need the default 12% of your hard drive allocated to restore points.
Move the slider toward Minimum until you feel comfortable that you have enough space. You can always check in a day or so and see how many Restore Points you have available to you, and adjust as necessary.

When you have everything set the way you want, OK your way back to the Desktop.

How do I use System Restore?
To access System Restore in XP:

From there you can choose whether to create a restore point, restore you computer, or remove an old restore point. Just follow the prompts.

In Vista, just type restore into the Start Menu search box. You'll see System Restore at the top of the menu. Click on it and follow the prompts.

Is there something better than System Restore?
I also use a free utility called ERUNT, available here. The program's author points out that System Restore will not always back up the complete registry, and that if a registry file itself is corrupt, you won't get a good result from System Restore. I have used ERUNT successfully, and I recommend using it as one more precaution you can take before installing new software.


Thank you to everyone who wrote with questions, comments, and suggestions. Please add yours by sending an email to cate@rlis.com.  If you'd like to look at past columns, browse over to the column archives, here. If you'd like to subscribe to this column by email, please visit this link.  It's easy, and free. If you'd prefer the RSS Feed, click here.


Links
System Restore Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Restore
ERUNT http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/
Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archives http://rlis.com/column.htm
Get Cate's column by email http://www.feedblitz.com/f/f.fbz?Sub=20618
RSS Feed http://rlis.com/rlis.xml

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Cate Eales has been helping people make online computing safe, accessible and fun for over 20 years. She lives in Kelowna with her husband, Eric, and her dog, Sandy. Cate is a partner in Real Life Internet Solutions, helping individuals and small businesses with virus, spyware and malware eradication; personal computer training and management; digital image management; music transfer; and website design, hosting and management. Email Cate at cate@rlis.com with your comments, suggestions, or questions. To browse the column archives, visit the Real Life Internet Solutions website at www.rlis.com.