Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
System Restore is a pretty nifty feature in concept. In practice, I see it have too many problems to feel comfortable relying on it.
I have Windows XP SP2. When I go into the System Restore application, it doesn't give me the option to create a restore point; it only allows me to restore to an earlier point and it never creates restore points. Any ideas on what might be wrong or how to fix it?
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I'll be honest and tell you right off that I have no answer for your question.
There are many possibilities, the most likely being that there is not enough room allocated for restore points. But in my experience, increasing that may or may not resolve the issue.
System Restore is so difficult to diagnose and I hear of so many problems and misunderstandings with it that I avoid it completely.
I turn it off. Completely. It's not worth it to me.
I'll tell you what I do instead.
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What System Restore is
System Restore is best thought of as a registry backup. Yes, in reality, it backs up more than just the registry, but exactly what else it backs up gets complicated. Suffice it to say that System Restore does not back up everything.
And as a registry backup, it's actually a pretty reasonable solution. When it works, it's a fine way to take a snapshot of the registry and restore it after other changes have been made.
What System Restore is not
System Restore does not restore the system.
More specifically, it does not restore everything to the state that it was at the time the restore point was created. It restores some things - like the registry - but not all things - like your files.
System Restore is not a substitute for backup.
System Restore in the wild
Much of my opinion on System Restore is not based on its definition or its intent. In theory, it's a great concept, poorly named (remember, it doesn't restore your system, only some of it). I'm not a fan of its user interface, but even that seems to be improving and that doesn't really factor much into my opinion.
What does is that, in practice, it seems to have problems.
Your inability to manually create a restore point is one example.
Other examples that I hear of frequently are the inability to restore to a listed restore point and the lack of a restore point to restore to.
Yes, sometimes, these are configuration issues. Sometimes, these are issues of mismatched expectations.
But often - too often - even understanding what should and should not be appropriate to expect of System Restore, it lets people down.
I see it in my inbox frequently.
System Restore successes
To be completely fair, I do also hear of successes with System Restore. It's not that uncommon to hear of problems caused by an installation to be completely repaired by reverting to a recent restore point.
Like I said, it's a great concept.
When it works.
Don't rely on System Restore
Given that it can work, but can also fail unpredictably, what course of action does that leave you?
Simple. Don't rely on System Restore.
Leave it enabled, if you like, but don't rely on it. Don't build your way of using your computer such that a System Restore failure would cause you a lot of problems.
Be happy when it works; be prepared when it doesn't.
Instead of System Restore
What I typically advise people to do is to turn off System Restore completely and rely instead on a good system backup strategy.
By "good backup strategy," I mean that you regularly take full system backups of your machine, augmented with frequent incremental backups.
If something goes wrong, restore from the most recent backup.
Yes, this can take more time than restoring to a System Restore restore point.
But restoring from a backup does restore your entire system.
It's what I do.
Choosing to leave System Restore enabled is also a fine approach, but only in addition to having those backups. That way, when System Restore works for you, it's a shortcut - a time saver.
And when it fails, it's not a disaster.
Article C5027 - January 4, 2012
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
I have HP DV 8000 series with XP SP3
Restore has always worked for me. But I do notice that it does not remove malware.
I use security software for that.
Posted by: justplanebill at February 18, 2012 8:44 AMOh and yes,
I use my portable hard drive to incrementally back up
everything.
Posted by: justplanebill at February 18, 2012 8:46 AMI have successfully used Acronis True Image to clone my drive about once per week. Until the recent flooding in Thailand hard drives were so cheap I would just buy two identical drives. One for the system and one for backup. Even a catastrophic failure was easily remedied by swapping in the backup and I was ready to go. I used to use Ghost but floppy drives became less available and the floppy discs is/was clearly not as reliable as data on a hard drive.
Posted by: Ray at February 18, 2012 8:45 PMI've never had much success with system restore. Seems very unreliable. Almost invariably comes up with "Your computer cannot be restored to ............ No changes have been made", the give-away normally being the sudden jump by the progress bar to the end whilst allegedly "restoring settings". Seemed to be a bit better running from safe mode but even that fails quite often. Doesn't seem very robust to me.
Posted by: Dace at March 9, 2012 12:28 PMIs Norton GoBack similar to System Restore? System Restore on my XP system has NEVER worked correctly from day one. I still have and use Norton GoBack with much success - it has saved my a$$ from bad and incompatible software installations, malware, and who knows what else dozens of times over the past seven years or so.
Posted by: Paul at April 22, 2012 10:54 PMDoes anyone make a program similar since Norton does not carry this product any longer?