Windows XP System Restore

[sputnik monroe 102]

Does any one know how to delete restore points for system restore?

The other day I screwed up my sound card drivers and did system restore to the most recent save point, which luckily enough was the day before. After the restore everything was fixed and alright again.

I was curious and opened system restore again and looked through to see how many save points are kept, and boy there are a lot. While going through I noticed that it creates a save point before you install pretty much any program which is nice. I was wondering though, how much disk space do each of these save points take up? I have a lot of them.

Any way I'm just curious if you can delete a save point? If so how.

[Tovarish 0]

Yes you can do it, but no, you don't normally want to mess with it. As a tech support agent, let me assure you System Restore is your friend, and entries are automatically wiped after 90 days anyway.

since you asked though, Start ->Programs->Accessories->system tools-> disk cleanup->More Options->Clean Up under System Restore....deletes all but the most recent restore point.

Disabling system restore deletes all restore points.

[Messiah 2]

let me assure you System Restore is your friend

amen to that

[harley 3 1185 0]

System restore's been a BIG friend to me on my laptop, yet when I needed to most on my desktop it had been oddly selective in its saving restore points; i.e. all the ones available were useless and didn't work anyway. Must have been one hell of a virus me thinks.

[Tovarish 0]

One of the first things most viruses worthy of the name will do when they infect you is to sabotage system restore

[llauma 0]

One of the first things most viruses worthy of the name will do when they infect you is to sabotage system restore

But system restore might restore some viruses too which you thought you had got rid off.

But I suppose in the long run it does more good than bad.

[Placebo 29]

To be honest system restore is one of the first things I turn off after a new install, IMO it slows the system down unnecessarily, uses quite large amounts of hard drive space unnecessarily, if the worst comes to the worst it's no big thing to have to reinstall a few things if something goes wrong

[Komissar 0]

I'm too lazy to do it. I just backup important things everytime I shut down the comp using autobackup thing.

[harley 3 1185 0]

To be honest system restore is one of the first things I turn off after a new install, IMO it slows the system down unnecessarily, uses quite large amounts of hard drive space unnecessarily, if the worst comes to the worst it's no big thing to have to reinstall a few things if something goes wrong

If I were to reinstall XP now, and reinstall all the stuff I've downloaded for OFP since summer, I'd have to reinstall OFP for what has to be the tenth time now, and download 20gig's worth of quality addons.

I am far too lazy to back-up and any precios time I do have at home (at University right now) is spent playing OFP, not backing it up.

So for the past five months I have been happily playing Flashpoint on a PC so ridden with viruses it takes about 5 minutes to turn on. Until it screws up OFP, it can wait .

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Oh, can I please ask a question too?

When I bought my new PC I wanted to save some money and kept the old Harddisk. I had to buy a new version of windows since before I used in my DELL PC with an OEM Version. I installed the new windows on that harddrive and let it delete the old one. Everything went fine and it runs smooth. But unfortunately every time I start up my computer I am asked whether I want to start with "Windows XP" or "Windows XP" instead ! Since I know that the newer version installed is always the top one in the list I always click on that one and Windows starts.

BUT, I dont want to chose the right version of windows each time I start up. And why am I asked anyway, wasnt the old version properly deleted? Or is there some garbage still somewhere on a strange partition I cant access from windows? And is there a sys. file in which I can get rid of the entry?

[Tovarish 0]

Looks like you didn't reformat the hard drive properly Albert.

If you just don't want to see that list, go to control panel->system->Advanced-> Settings under Startup and Recovery, and change "Time to display list of operating systems" to 0 seconds

Quote[/b] ]But system restore might restore some viruses too which you thought you had got rid off.

If that's happening you seriously need to rethink your choice of antivirus software .

speaking of which, let me say that due to work related experiences I have a passionate hatred for Mcaffe and Trendmicro. Norton is better but not by much. AVG's where it's at.

[M4XSs 0]

I agree that its total waste of hd space and system resources, but some people found it useful.

instead of that I used to make complete image of my system partition and using it when needed, by using acronis true image, I also used old 40 gig hd for backup, I can restore my entire system with every program or other stuff when needed by using free utility by that hd vendor which is western digital, you should consider that harley if you worrying about your addons.

Imagine that you ran a full system scan for PARASITES and then u needed for some reason to restore the system you will find all of them waiting for you after that, so its always recommended to turn it off when preforming such activity.

@Tovarish mcaffee home versions maybe not that good, but pro or enterprise editions are away better.

[harley 3 1185 0]

Well eventually I'm going to have to just wipe the Hard Drive, because I've tried absolutely everything to clean the *** viruses off failed. McAffee wouldn't do it. Norton couldn't do it. Microsoft Ant-Spyware just cries when i try to get it to scan and ZoneAlarm can't hack it.

I'd just put a Hard Drive in the PC, installed everything, then a week later it was choked with viruses. Instantly I tried for System Restore, but it was screwed up.

Morale of the story...Use a bloody good firewall.

[Messiah 2]

and dont visit dodgy sites

[llauma 0]

Quote[/b] ]But system restore might restore some viruses too which you thought you had got rid off.

If that's happening you seriously need to rethink your choice of antivirus software .

speaking of which, let me say that due to work related experiences I have a passionate hatred for Mcaffe and Trendmicro. Norton is better but not by much. AVG's where it's at.

If I'm not mistaken Norton/Symantec advised people to turn of system restore for the reason I mentioned. I'm quite sure it doesn't matter which antivirus program you have.

I think this is more a thing for MS to patch unless they have done that already.

[Placebo 29]

Morale of the story...Use a bloody good firewall.

Moral of the story is don't use IE or Outlook

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

and dont visit dodgy sites

you are wrong about that one. I got malware on my PC too after I downloaded some freeware DVD Players!

Oh, and have a look at my sig!

[harley 3 1185 0]

Quote[/b] ]don't use IE or Outlook

Can't help it! The only browser I might use is Opera, but I didn't like Firefox, that's for sure.

The only dodgy site I go on is this! Funny guy .

Out of interest Tovarish, what is AVG? Is it any good?

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Morale of the story...Use a bloody good firewall.

Moral of the story is don't use IE or Outlook

you know, this reminds me of something.. I read about the largest Windows error message ever reported reported.

when this brightened up Time Square then I bet this made about a thousand people smile (what an office deja vue)!

[Komissar 0]

AVG is very good, it's what I use.

And StarForce = THE MOST FUCKING TERRIBLE AND SHIT THING EVER PULLED OUT OF SOMEONE'S ARSE.

Rant over.

[crashdome 3]

Oh, can I please ask a question too?

When I bought my new PC I wanted to save some money and kept the old Harddisk. I had to buy a new version of windows since before I used in my DELL PC with an OEM Version. I installed the new windows on that harddrive and let it delete the old one. Everything went fine and it runs smooth. But unfortunately every time I start up my computer I am asked  whether I want to start with "Windows XP" or "Windows XP" instead   ! Since I know that the newer version installed is always the top one in the list I always click on that one and Windows starts.

BUT, I dont want to chose the right version of windows each time I start up. And why am I asked anyway, wasnt the old version properly deleted? Or is there some garbage still somewhere on a strange partition I cant access from windows? And is there a sys. file in which I can get rid of the entry?

What you have is an additional entry in your boot.ini. It's actually a good thing if you run multiple OSs. In your case though, it is just an erroneous entry.

do this:

Right-Clk "My Computer" --> "properties" --> Advanced tab --> Click "Startup and recovery" --> click "Settings" button

You should see a section titled "Default Operating system"

You should see both those entries

Click "EDIT" to bring up your boot.ini file.

Under the heading "[Operating Systems]" in the file, there will be both those entries. Something like:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Delete the one that you DO NOT choose when you startup. e.g. if you select the second one during startup .. then delete the first entry or vice-versa as needed.

Reboot to test

Beware: you are modifying a very important file. Be careful.

Regarding System restore:

It can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Like Placebo, I immediately remove it. However, I have learned to take action regarding my data that mimics system restore without the need to run that hog. So I don't need it at all. It's all about how you want to secure/backup your data and how good you are at it. I also am IT and we take action that negates the need for it on any of our servers/workstations.

[DBR_ONIX 0]

AVG is very good, it's what I use.

I tried it for a while, but scanning was painfully slow.. To do 9GB took a few hours.. Having, what.. over 300GB of stuff, it's far to slow to scan..

Avast! Antivirus is good (plus it has an "!" in it's name, so it must me good)

Only tiiny problem I have is when it's downloaded an updated virus database, it freezes the PC for a few seconds, which is more irritating than anything (Well, after I disabled the vioce announcments)..

As for system restore, I disabled it when I realised, a, I never used it on my desktop, b, it was using over 20GB of space (And at the time I had very little disc space left.. Grrr)

On my laptop I have it enabled, and I've used it a few times, since I normaly use it for testing new programs etc, and I uninstall stuff a lot

Anyway, this seems slightly of topic..

- Ben

[Tovarish 0]

Well eventually I'm going to have to just wipe the Hard Drive, because I've tried absolutely everything to clean the *** viruses off failed. McAffee wouldn't do it. Norton couldn't do it. Microsoft Ant-Spyware just cries when i try to get it to scan and ZoneAlarm can't hack it.

I'd just put a Hard Drive in the PC, installed everything, then a week later it was choked with viruses. Instantly I tried for System Restore, but it was screwed up.

Morale of the story...Use a bloody good firewall.

Are you scanning in Safe Mode?

anyway - AVG

"bloody good firewalls" can also be a royal pain.I've had many people call me about not being able to access secure websites, or any website at all, and the minute I have them turn off their Norton/Mcafee/Pc-Cillin firewall, they're good to go. Windows firewall, along with the one built in to my Dlink router, plus having AVG and AdAware loaded do a fine job of keeping me out of trouble. Though to be honest, half the time when I want to do something other than gaming, I boot up into Linux instead

[crashdome 3]

... which is more irritating than anything (Well, after I disabled the vioce announcments)..

The first time I ever got an Avast update I jumped about 5 feet off of my chair and almost fell backwards. I think my cat who was sleeping on the floor had a mild heart attack.

There is nothing like having a wake up from a virus database notification in 5.1 surround sound. I have a media PC on my television in my living room and my fiance and I had a friend from out of town staying on the couch for a night... at the *exact* time the lights went out, we hear "The virus database has been updated". My fiance and I knew what it was and our friend could hear us laughing hysterically in the other room.

Needless to say our friend has yet to visit us again.

They should definately put warnings all over their website for those who have heart conditions or anxiety problems!

[M4XSs 0]

and dont visit dodgy sites

you are wrong about that one. I got malware on my PC too after I downloaded some freeware DVD Players!

Oh, and have a look at my sig!

Sadly many companies just have this disrespect for users privacy, many of such companies either sponsor a widely used software and bundle all sort of shit with it, or they just write a rootkit to protect their legal rights they say as Sony did.

Quote[/b] ]Can't help it! The only browser I might use is Opera, but I didn't like Firefox, that's for sure.

nothing bad with opera, if you dislike firefox which is my main browser and its really decent at all possible levels its well designed maintained and supported.

opera is far better than Internet explorer if the security was the main concern,IE is true international security risk, enough to see IE developers complaining and saying that IE don't get the required attention by ms management, just to see how much responsible ms management is.