An article on XP System Restore. While 7 is being released and Vista is mainstream and Linux is taking market share.
What next a article on Windows 98 SE......
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We ran a poll last week (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=1259), and of the nearly 12,000 members who responded to the question about their primary OS, 96 percent said they were still using WinXP. 43 percent said they would not upgrade; another 46 percent said they were waiting for Windows 7 -- and the Vista, Linux, and Mac OS camps barely made a ripple. Granted, it's a grass-roots poll, but it would seem like there remains a need for WinXP info for all those people who are still supporting it.
...that still have XP on their machine. I do system repairs all the time, and have used Vista in different varieties and have found it to be too resource hungry. The best way, in my opinion, to run Vista is to strip it down and turn off many of the features that make it pretty. Of course, I run multiple tasks at a time, and I do not like my machine to be bogged down.
I ran the Win7 Beta for awhile, and I actually liked it with one exception. DRM!! When you start dealing with this issue, you will find it to be a real burden. I don't know if the final release of Win7 is going to have as much security as the Beta, but I will most likely not even switch to Win7 until it is necessary.
I ran the Win7 Beta for awhile, and I actually liked it with one exception. DRM!! When you start dealing with this issue, you will find it to be a real burden. I don't know if the final release of Win7 is going to have as much security as the Beta, but I will most likely not even switch to Win7 until it is necessary.
and have no interest whatsoever in Vista. I'm not overly worried about 7 either because I'm just about sick of Microsoft telling me what I should be installing and when, compromising my Firefox, and writing software so badly it needs patching every five minutes.
XP works, mostly, so any help such as the above is well useful. When I can't use XP any more, I'll be looking at alternatives.
Note: we have about 15,000 PC's here and our default OS is XP. We've had to start dealing with Vista laptops as we have thousands of students with bright shiny new ones. It's cost us a small fortune to tweak, alter, change, add to and substract from our infrastructure to cope with this. I abhore Microsofts assumption that when they release a new OS, we will all happily go out and spend money up/downgrading our PC's to run it.
XP works, mostly, so any help such as the above is well useful. When I can't use XP any more, I'll be looking at alternatives.
Note: we have about 15,000 PC's here and our default OS is XP. We've had to start dealing with Vista laptops as we have thousands of students with bright shiny new ones. It's cost us a small fortune to tweak, alter, change, add to and substract from our infrastructure to cope with this. I abhore Microsofts assumption that when they release a new OS, we will all happily go out and spend money up/downgrading our PC's to run it.
In the town where I work, I still have a couple of users on Win2K. One of them refuses to let us upgrade his machine. He said we can replace it when he retires in September.
1. I accept the warning that Desktop files will be lost by a restore operation, but disagree with
"Keep in mind that the Desktop is NOT a protected folder".
System Restore preserves "your system state, which comprises crucial system files".
I would have said that what is preserved is protected, therefore the Desktop IS a protected folder.
2. On XP Home SP3 this fails "System Volume Information folder, select Properties, and access the Security tab" - there is no Security Tab.
I think I used CACLS last year to let me into System Volume Information.
Regards
Alan
"Keep in mind that the Desktop is NOT a protected folder".
System Restore preserves "your system state, which comprises crucial system files".
I would have said that what is preserved is protected, therefore the Desktop IS a protected folder.
2. On XP Home SP3 this fails "System Volume Information folder, select Properties, and access the Security tab" - there is no Security Tab.
I think I used CACLS last year to let me into System Volume Information.
Regards
Alan
What is the point in even having SR on the machine? 9 out of 10 times setting your system back does not even work. Most of the time if I'm doing a repair on a machine that has been infected, I turn off SR, until the machine is clean, and then turn it back on.
SR is kind of like Windows Defrag! It does a half baked job, and you really don't see any performance or fixes after using them! It is the responsibility of the techie to make the fix, Windows offers little to know help!!
SR is kind of like Windows Defrag! It does a half baked job, and you really don't see any performance or fixes after using them! It is the responsibility of the techie to make the fix, Windows offers little to know help!!
I've tried about 10 times to recover from some instability, and NEVER has System Restore completed successfully. I Always get an error message no matter how many restore points I try.
... said 10 out of 10! Personally, I find it pointless to even have it turned on. 10 out of 10 :) times, I end up having to use the OS disk to run a repair, and or re-install with the current system files intact. Basically, a real pain!! Oh, and did I mention time consuming?
System Restore betrayed me when I needed it most.
All the SR points were corrupted.
All the SR points were corrupted.
I would like to know why System Restore does not work 100% of the time. I've had it fail me many times and friends have had same experience. I had a program on my first computer called go back and it worked 100% all the time and was a life saver. I would never rely on system restore.
Go Back. It was a great program back in the day. I had to use System Restore once, and it did what it was supposed to do. If your problem involves a virus, you can forget it. Turn off System Restore and start fixing the OS the old fashioned way.
go back is still available - i still use it. it works so well that norton purchased it and now sells it as a standalone - i recommend it, it's always pulled me back from reinstallation-hell. the only thing that'll stop it is a physical harddrive crash.
It could be alternatively titled, "10 things you already know about windows restore."
Has anyone ever done a save of a restore point which they can use beyond the 90 day limit. What is the specific file name used by "Restore" to save the data? Would it even be useful to do this? How about a "fresh load" restore point saved on a USB drive to bring back beyond the 90 day point? Would the DOS command be able to find it? Would it be better to image the drive? So-o-o many questions!!
After a reinstall, including replacing all applications, data, anti virus etc, I make a complete disk image of the machine. A "bare metal" restore point.
I have a lot more confidence in these image than a system restore.
That said, yes, you can make a restore point on a known good config and back it up like any file.
But you bring up a question I always had; can the 90 day cycle be changed? I've never come by any way to extend the age of the oldest restore...
I have a lot more confidence in these image than a system restore.
That said, yes, you can make a restore point on a known good config and back it up like any file.
But you bring up a question I always had; can the 90 day cycle be changed? I've never come by any way to extend the age of the oldest restore...
This Article falls far short of your usual standard.
Sounded more loke a Microsoft promotion.
Win XP Restore is pretty widely accepted to be poorly featured and more important, completely unreliable.
The Web is full of articles on how you can try and get it working if it decides it cannot restore to an earlier restore point. The fact that you may have to try several diferent methode before you find one that works this time sugests that there are a number of seperate bugs in the facility. Worse, Tw of the machines I look after will not respond to any of the posted 'solutions' an are therefore running with no safety net at all.
Restore is indeed a very important facility, and usually works well enough. However reliability is vital, and lacking.
Microsoft must try harder - after all the complaints have been ongoing for years now.
Smike
Sounded more loke a Microsoft promotion.
Win XP Restore is pretty widely accepted to be poorly featured and more important, completely unreliable.
The Web is full of articles on how you can try and get it working if it decides it cannot restore to an earlier restore point. The fact that you may have to try several diferent methode before you find one that works this time sugests that there are a number of seperate bugs in the facility. Worse, Tw of the machines I look after will not respond to any of the posted 'solutions' an are therefore running with no safety net at all.
Restore is indeed a very important facility, and usually works well enough. However reliability is vital, and lacking.
Microsoft must try harder - after all the complaints have been ongoing for years now.
Smike
What happens if a virus invade my computer today and i decide to restore my system back two weeks ago before the PC was infected by the virus, will system restore get rid of the virus? After all two weeks ago there was no virus in the system--so if Restore returns the system back before the virus invaded my PC---it should also return it back to the condition before the virus.Is that how it works? Please explain.
System Restore only monitors and restores certain files in the system. It is said that it restores the registry as well, but from experience I have learned that is not the case.
QUOTE:
Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) for
making a complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the
whole registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive
is saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the
current registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file,
it is merged with the current registry without deleting anything that
has been added since the export, leaving you with an absolute mess of
old and new entries.
Because of the locations that a virus may be on the system, you may not rely on sys. restore to remove the virus. That is why there are third party applications to help you maintain a clean computer.
One of which is ERUNT and NTREGOPT. You may find it here: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/
This program makes a complete backup of your registry, and you may set it to make a complete backup every time you restart the machine.
As far as the rest of the system, you need to rely on third party firewalls, such as COMODO, and of course AV systems. I also suggest a couple of other add-ons like the free version of ThreatFire, and InfoProcess Anti-Hook. With the exception of servers, you may have all of these programs for free. A multi-layered defense system is more secure as long as you don't run two AV systems at the same time. Running two AV's may cause false negatives and not give you a clean read of the system.
Of course the best and most secure thing to do is have a complete backup of your entire system. You may do this with burning DVD's, but programs like Acronis (which Seagate users get to use for free) or Norton Ghost, as well as a few others allow for a complet system backup on to another HDD. I find Acronis to be the best.
I hope that information helps.
QUOTE:
Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) for
making a complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the
whole registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive
is saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the
current registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file,
it is merged with the current registry without deleting anything that
has been added since the export, leaving you with an absolute mess of
old and new entries.
Because of the locations that a virus may be on the system, you may not rely on sys. restore to remove the virus. That is why there are third party applications to help you maintain a clean computer.
One of which is ERUNT and NTREGOPT. You may find it here: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/
This program makes a complete backup of your registry, and you may set it to make a complete backup every time you restart the machine.
As far as the rest of the system, you need to rely on third party firewalls, such as COMODO, and of course AV systems. I also suggest a couple of other add-ons like the free version of ThreatFire, and InfoProcess Anti-Hook. With the exception of servers, you may have all of these programs for free. A multi-layered defense system is more secure as long as you don't run two AV systems at the same time. Running two AV's may cause false negatives and not give you a clean read of the system.
Of course the best and most secure thing to do is have a complete backup of your entire system. You may do this with burning DVD's, but programs like Acronis (which Seagate users get to use for free) or Norton Ghost, as well as a few others allow for a complet system backup on to another HDD. I find Acronis to be the best.
I hope that information helps.
How do you restore XP back to factory condition?
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