The System Restore wizard on Details Type System recovery Included with Related components, System Restore is a feature in that allows the user to revert their computer's state (including system files, installed applications,, and system settings) to that of a previous point in time, which can be used to recover from system malfunctions or other problems. First included in, it has been included in all following desktop versions of Windows released since, excluding the. ![]() In, System Restore is turned off by default and must be enabled by users in order to function. In prior Windows versions it was based on a file filter that watched changes for a certain set of file extensions, and then copied files before they were overwritten. An updated version of System Restore introduced by uses the service as a backend (allowing block-level changes in files located in any directory on the volume to be monitored and backed up regardless of their location) and allows System Restore to be used from the in case the Windows installation no longer boots at all. Contents • • • • • • • • • • • Overview [ ] In System Restore, the may create a new restore point manually (as opposed to the system creating one automatically), roll back to an existing restore point, or change the System Restore configuration. Moreover, the restore itself can be undone. Old restore points are discarded in order to keep the volume's usage within the specified amount. For many users, this can provide restore points covering the past several weeks. Disaster recovery solution. RecoverPoint recently crossed half a. And disaster recovery to any point in time. Provide disaster recovery for metro distance active. When trying to mark a tape that contains active recovery points as free in Data Protection. How to mark a DPM tape containing active recovery points as free. Users concerned with performance or space usage may also opt to disable System Restore entirely. Files stored on volumes not monitored by System Restore are never backed up or restored. System Restore backs up system files of certain extensions (.exe,.dll, etc.) and saves them for later recovery and use. It also backs up the registry and most drivers. Resources monitored [ ] Starting with, System Restore takes a snapshot of all volumes it is monitoring. However, on, it only monitors the following: • • Files in the folder ( Dllcache) • Local user profiles • and WMI databases • IIS metabase • Specific file types monitored The list of file types and directories to be included or excluded from monitoring by System Restore can be customized on Windows Me and Windows XP by editing%windir% system32 restore Filelist.xml. Disk space consumption [ ] The amount of disk space System Restore consumes can be configured. Starting with Windows XP, the disk space allotted is configurable per volume and the data stores are also stored per volume. File are stored using NTFS compression and a handler allows deleting all but the most recent Restore Point to free up disk space. System Restore can be disabled completely to regain disk space. It automatically disables itself if the disk free space is too low for it to operate. Restore points [ ] Windows creates restore points: • When software is installed using or other installers that are aware of System Restore • When installs new updates • When the user installs a driver that is not digitally signed by • Periodically. By default: • Windows XP creates a restore point every 24 hours • Windows Vista creates a restore point if none is created within the last 24 hours • Windows 7 creates a restore point if none has been created within the last seven days • On user's command Windows XP stores restore-point files in a named 'System Volume Information' on the root of every drive, partition or volume, including most external drives and some USB flash drives. The operating system deletes older restore points per the configured space constraint on a basis. Implementation differences [ ] There are considerable differences between how System Restore works under Windows XP and later Windows versions. • Configuration UI - In Windows XP, there is a graphical slider to configure the amount of disk space allotted to System Restore. In Windows Vista, the GUI to configure the disk space is not available. Using the command-line tool Vssadmin.exe or by editing the appropriate registry key, the space reserved can be adjusted. Starting with, the slider is available once again. • Maximum space - In Windows XP, System Restore can be configured to use up to a maximum of 12% of the 's space for most disk sizes; however, this may be less depending on the volume's size. Restore points over 90 days old are automatically deleted, as specified by the registry value RPLifeInterval (Time to Live - TTL) default value of 7776000 seconds. In Windows Vista and later, System Restore is designed for larger volumes. By default, it uses 15% of the volume's space. • File paths monitored - Up to Windows XP, files are backed up only from certain directories. On Windows Vista and later, this set of files is defined by monitored extensions outside of the Windows folder, and everything under the Windows folder. • File types monitored - Up to Windows XP, it excludes any file types used for users' personal data files, such as documents, digital photographs, media files,, etc. It also excludes the monitored set of file types (.DLL,.EXE etc.) from folders such as. Microsoft recommends that if a user is unsure as to whether certain files will be modified by a rollback, they should keep those files under My Documents. When a rollback is performed, the files that were being monitored by System Restore are restored and newly created folders are removed. However, on Windows Vista and later, it excludes only document file types; it does not exclude any monitored system file type regardless of its location. • Configuring advanced System Restore settings - Windows XP supports customizing System Restore settings via Windows Registry and a file at%windir% system32 restore Filelist.xml. Windows Vista and later no longer support this. • FAT32 volume support: On Windows Vista and later, System Restore no longer works on disks and cannot be enabled on disks smaller than 1 GB. Restoring the system [ ] Up to Windows XP, the system can be restored as long as it is in an online state, that is, as long as Windows boots normally or from. It is not possible to restore the system if Windows is unbootable without using a 3rd-party bootable recovery media such as. Under and later, the can be used to launch System Restore and restore a system in an offline state, that is, in case the Windows installation is unbootable. Since the advent of, Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset from it can be used to create a bootable recovery disc that can log on to an unbootable Windows installation and start System Restores. The toolset includes ERD commander for Windows XP that was previously a 3rd-party product by Wininternals. Limitations and complications [ ] A bug existed in System Restore that shipped with wherein the rollback procedure does not work after 8 September 2001 due to the limitations of the algorithm used to generate checkpoints. Microsoft had created an update to address this issue. A limitation which applies to System Restore in Windows versions prior to Windows Vista is that only certain file types and files in certain locations on the volume are monitored, therefore unwanted software installations and especially in-place software upgrades may be incompletely reverted by System Restore. Consequently, there may be little or no practical beneficial impact. Certain issues may also arise when attempting to run or completely uninstall that application. In contrast, various other utilities have been designed to provide much more complete reversal of system changes including software upgrades. However, beginning with Windows Vista, System Restore monitors all system file types on all file paths on a given volume, so there is no issue of incomplete restoration. It is not possible to create a permanent restore point. All restore points will eventually be deleted after the time specified in the RPLifeInterval registry setting is reached or earlier if allotted disk space is insufficient. Even if no user or software triggered restore points are generated allotted disk space is consumed by automatic restore points. Consequently, in systems with little space allocated, if a user does not notice a new problem within a few days, it may be too late to restore to a configuration from before the problem arose. For data integrity purposes, System Restore does not allow other applications or users to modify or delete files in the directory where the restore points are saved. On NTFS volumes, the Restore Points are protected using ACLs. Since its method of backup is fairly simplistic, it may end up archiving such as, for example in a restore point created before using antivirus software to clean an infection. Antivirus software is usually unable to remove infected files from System Restore; the only way actually to delete the infected files is to disable System Restore, which will result in losing all saved restore points; otherwise they will remain until Windows deletes the affected restore points. However stored infected files in themselves are harmless unless executed; they will only pose a threat if the affected restore point is reinstated. Windows System Restore is not compatible with restore points made by third party applications. Changes made to a volume from another OS (in case of dual-boot OS scenarios) cannot be monitored. In addition, dual-booting different versions of Windows can disrupt the operation of System Restore. Specifically, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 delete the checkpoints created by Windows Vista and later. Also, checkpoints created by Windows 8 may be destroyed by previous versions of Windows. See also [ ] • • References [ ]. •,, 2007-12-28 • Jim Tanous,, Tekrevue, 2015-07-28 • ^ Russinovich, Mark E.; Solomon, David A. Microsoft Windows Internals: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 (4 ed.).:. Windows Vista portal.. Archived from on 10 May 2007. Retrieved 11 January 2014. • ^ Fok, Christine (September 2007).. TechNet Magazine.. Retrieved 11 January 2014. Retrieved 10 May 2014. Archived from on 24 April 2008. Retrieved 10 May 2014. Retrieved 10 May 2014. Retrieved 2009-11-03. • ^ • March 27, 2008, at the. Retrieved 15 August 2013 from Microsoft website. Microsoft Corporation. File Cabinet Blog.. July 14, 2006. Retrieved 2007-03-21. Retrieved 2015-02-01. Snapshots of the boot volume created by System Restore running on Windows 8 may be deleted if the snapshot is subsequently exposed by an earlier version of Windows. Further reading [ ]. Before you install more programs and drivers on your newly installed Windows 7 PC, make sure you have System Protection enabled. System protection is a feature that regularly creates and saves information about your computer’s system files and registry. System protection also saves previous versions of files that you’ve modified. It saves these files in restore points, which are created just before significant system events, such as the installation of a program or device driver. By default System protection is automatically on for the drive that Windows is installed on. System protection can only be turned on for drives that are formatted using the NTFS file system. To check if you have the protection turned on go to the Control Panel, click System then choose System Protection. The System Properties dialog will appear. Click the System Protection tab. Look for the drive marked with System – this is the drive where Windows 7 is installed. The protection for this drive is on by default – if not, click it to turn it on. You may turn on the system protection of other non-system disks if you like. If you do this, you can restore previous versions of files inside those drives. Click the Configure button to see the restore settings and maximum space used by the restore points. If you have a large amount of space on your computer, it’s a good idea to choose the Restore system settings and previous versions of files option and to set the Max Usage percentage so that it’s greater than 5 GB in size. If you want to see the restore points created by your system, click the System Restore button. The list of restore points will appear. You may go to this list in the future if you need to restore from one of the available restore points. System Restore is a way to undo system changes to your computer without affecting your personal files, such as email, documents, or photos. System Restore is the best choice if you installed a program or driver that caused an unexpected change to your computer and uninstalling the program or driver didn’t fix the problem. If you’ve been using system restore for some time and you, check out my articles on. If you have any questions about system restore, post them in the comments.
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