Discussion on:

Poll: Has Windows System Restore ever saved your computer?

System restore has also made removal of malware, etc. easier by restoring the system to a date prior to the infections. Assuming of course you or the user know the date of the infection you can use system restore to take the computer back to a date prior to the infection. Has worked for me several times. And then there have been times when system restore would simply not work, returning a message indicating that it was unable to perform the restore.

Just another tool to use to eradicate nasties.

In my experience with system restore for XP it has only worked 20% of the time with non malware threats and 5% with malware threats. I wish it would store the restore points differently so the malware threats could not prevent you from picking a good restore point. I have yet (knock on something)to use it in Vista.

It invariably fails to work and has never saved anything despite many attempts to use it over the years

I have had several occassions when people have brought their laptops to me after removing Norton because the Internet doesn't work. A system restore to a working date allows quick internet access to pull down the removal tool from the vendors web site. Normally those issues are due to the Norton Firewall not entirely uninstalling.

has made cleanup of nasties much easier

Has never worked for me - ever. It has always complained it could not conplete or similar. Every time one of my Windows boxes has gone bad I have been forced to reinstall from scratch. Doesn't concern me any longer though because I switched to Macs a couple of years ago and only tinker with Windows to keep up with the technology.

most of the time I get a vague failure error, "...restore was unable to complete the desired action." I've come to believe it doesn't work. It would be nice to have a 'test' mode so you could validate a roll-back without 'really' doing one. Is there a way?

Better than nothing, but had to do reformat and reinstall too many times to call it a sucess.

Like any other tool, I think the best chances of success exist if it is used at the right times in the right situations. I personally wouln't recommend as the first solution. I have only resorted to it when application uninstallers fail, driver rollback does not seem to work, or when a malware remover tool is not successful. In these cases I have had 100% success with system restore but then have really only needed it about 6 or 7 times in xp and once in Vista. I manually create restore points routinely when adding any software or hardware, just in case. I was surprised when it corrected a minor but annoying malware problem.

system restore is the first thing that i try and after the restore i try, i don't see any improvements being made so i don't bother with it anymore. besides, its another way that viruses can come in if you aren't careful

It's usually one of the first things I disable when setting up a new PC.

Perhaps I'll rethink this.

I'm amazed that anyone has ever gotten System Restore to actually accomplish anything useful ever.

I have only had a few occasions to try to use it or help someone else try to use it. I have NEVER seen System Restore work in response to any kind of malware (trashing the restore points is trivially easy for malware).

All it's ever done is restore the malware.

exactly.
a great tool. in xp..no idea about vista.
it would be useful to have a simple, simple way of limiting the "history" to avoid filling a hard drive, especially on an older laptop. but it is an underated, under-publicized tool.

I only use this tool very infrequently to try and solve strange OS problems. It has worked before, but don't really consider it a good strategy for malware removal.

System Restore has been great and helped me get an infected or otherwise hosed machine back to working order. At that point, I can install better AV proection, clean antyhing latent and better protect the machine from future threats. What's more, it is so easy to use, I can quickly walk nieces, nephews and friends calling for free support through the process.
In all fairness, there have been a few times when it has not worked because whatever infection has disabled the System Restore function. Or, the machine remains infected afterward. If I had the time I'd use Hijack This and dig deep to find the problems, but it is almost always faster to save the data and re-install the OS. End user is always happy with a now faster machine.

Cheers
Charle O'Hearn
http://www.plexuscommunications.com

I have used Restore but one time and it was just recently on Vista box to recover from a bad install of an update.

Yes it has saved me several times. It usually happens when I install any software and are updated with bad system files. System restore of XP works great.

Because Vista (and even the RC of Windows 7) has such a bad compatibility layer, I have had to remove software and drivers that did not work. Restore was the safest way to do this.

I never had much luck using system restore in XP and typically turn it off on XP builds, but I have to admit it has been an absolute life saver in trying to keep VISTA from self destructing.

It's a complete waste of time. I always have to reformat and reinstall.

Never never ever!!
It always just made it worse, I always rather to search in the console than use that time wasting partition crashing so called fix from windows.

It is like asking: "has ever a mechanic fixed a faulty engine?" Yes but it should not have failed in the first place. I especially appreciate the: "Warning, this might break your computer" messages. It is smart enough to know it is vulnerable but not built to prevent problems it knows it has or be sure what is a threat. It is therefore the users and not Microsoft's fault if it breaks due to known problems.

The question to ask would be "what caused the fault in the engine"? I had an oil change done once and the gasket they used to seal the oil filter was manufactured out of spec. I didn't know it (no way I could have) and neither did the oil change business. Well, lo and behold, the oil leaked out and caused some internal damage to my engine. The engine wasn't at fault, but it still had to be fixed. I thought I was doing the right thing by getting my oil changed on a regular basis, just like the manual says I should. So tell me, should there have been a warning light on my dashboard that said, "This might break your car"? If there was, should it have stopped me from getting an oil change? I think not.

(I now get all my oil changes done by an authorized dealer.)

A similar example, I downloaded an update from Microsoft just last night (via Automatic Updates) that was specifically for my network adapter. Guess what? The "update" caused the network adapter to stop working altogether! Even after two reboots the NIC was completely non-functional. Fortunately, a simple driver rollback fixed the problem, but the point is that there was no KNOWN problem with that driver that was made apparent to me when I opted to install it. It never said, "Hey, this might break your computer!" Of course, it was an UPDATE. From Microsoft. Why would I think it might break my computer?

While I'll agree that the majority of computer problems can be traced back to user indiscretion (or just plain incompetence) there are plenty of times when even the best laid plans just don't work. Hate to break it to you, but things WILL FAIL from time to time. Period. And it doesn't matter how careful or clever you think you are.

As for System Restore, I don't rely on it because my past experience with it has never been a positive one. Either the restore points failed to work or even when they did work, the problem remained afterwards. System Restore is a potentially handy tool, but isn't reliable enough, IMO, to be considered a first line of defense.

""The question to ask would be "what caused the fault in the engine"? I had an oil change done once and the gasket they used to seal the oil filter was manufactured out of spec. I didn't know it (no way I could have) and neither did the oil change business. Well, lo and behold, the oil leaked out and caused some internal damage to my engine. The engine wasn't at fault, but it still had to be fixed. I thought I was doing the right thing by getting my oil changed on a regular basis, just like the manual says I should. So tell me, should there have been a warning light on my dashboard that said, "This might break your car"? If there was, should it have stopped me from getting an oil change? I think not."

No but maybe the light that IS on your dashboard should have stopped you from driving the car after the oil had all leaked out.

You failed to perform routine maintenance shown in the owners manual AND ignored the clear warning provided by the system (perhaps demonstrating the real reason behind the common nickname for those warning lights on the dash).

It doesn't take long and is easy to use. I have around a 50% success rate with it; higher if the user remembers when the problem / infection started.

It's save my computer many, many times, particularly after problematic driver upgrades.

No, but it has completely fubared computers belonging to my clients, to the point of making recovery of damaged files impossible.

Maybe I have just been lucky NOT having ever been forced to try it, but after what I have seen in the wild, it would not be my tool of first resort.

I've had some luck with the XP system restore. Would I swear by it and depend on it for an emergency, probably not. But it has proven itself to be a very effective way of combatting things like spyware and malware.

I've used it at home when the kids messed up some settings badly, but at work I just reimage and return-to-user. Strangely, it's worth the extra trouble at work because there is usually more junk, malware, and malfeasance on those computers than the ones at home.

Restore has restored worms and viruses more frequently thasn it has saved anything. In addition, I have found that Restore has been turned off at times when I did not deactivate it myself. And don't start with accusations of my being a novice or ignorant user, as I am an MCSE, and have taught 31 IT classes in IT security at 4 colleges, and do take proper pprecautions to pretect my system with antimalware, firewall, and antivirus applications.

My experience parallels Palmetto's experience. It is a quick and easy thing to try first, but success rate leaves something to be desired. I have much better luck with Windows Home Server restore function. Now, that has saved my butt a number of times.

A friend of mine used to run a DJ business. Doing mostly weddings, he took on a job that both of us agree may have been more than he could handle. He had signed-on to do a company's Christmas Party, which would include a night of karaoke amongst the company's 500+ guests. This sort of event comes with plenty of stress as there is a lot of equipment to setup in order to fill a room of that size with light and sound with only two of us to set it all up. Then, about 30 minutes before we're supposed to get started, the video on his karaoke software wouldn't work. Text was not appearing on the stage monitor. With a cross of the fingers, a quick Windows System Restore to a restore point the previous week when he knew everything was working properly got us out of the jam.

The restore is the biggest piece of crap I have ever seen! The backup stores the files in 200 mb zip files. The restore works fine UNLESS you refresh your hard drive. Once you do that, you are screwed. The restore will begin, you can select the backup you want to restore, it starts preparing the backup then suddenly quits saying it can't find the file. The Microsoft web site claims this is because the backup was moved to a different location which is not the case. Any file that got split in the 200mb limit can not be restored.

I haven't been to lucky with System Restore at home or work, however backup Util for Windows bailed me out a few times as well Ghost
My IT doesnt run backup on individual pc's but I feel they should they dont have the storage space for it ( someday maybe )

I was on my work PC no less, and it was lagging horribly behind. I was cleaning up some crap installations and accidentally confirmed to delete my extended video driver. ARGH! But I used System Restore to go back to the last save and PRESTO! It was perfect again!

For instance, every time I try to install updates for IEV8 and some related parts (spam filters), the NET infrastructure, or update the definitions of MS mallware protection, my machine CANNOT boot again! And I have to goto restore from checkpoint ....


What I may be doing wrong ? Initially, I had as default to download and install all, then I just said download only to control which ones I want to install.

I haven't installed any IEV8 updates for some time now, but anyways I am using FF.


Any idea would be appreciated....

My personal laptop has Vista Home Premium and on one occasion it was installing updates as part of a shutdown. Apparently the battery was too low because when I tried to start it the next day, no joy. I tried safe mode and a couple of other things, and finally did the restore. At that point I liked the feature.

You needed one more choice:
Yes, but more often than not it fails, refuses to consider previous restore points, etc.

I decided to reconfigure RAID on my the then brand new box.

I made complete backup on external drive, reconfigured RAID, and started restore. Windows installation program, in all its wisdom, somehow decided that external drive is a primary disk drive, and asked me whether I want to format it. I wasn't paying attention, and said yes.

Ouch.

Luckily, I still got all my important stuff on my old box, but it took me about a week to get everything back togehter.

The only times I have neede system restore, it did not work. I used to dutifully create a restore point prior to installing new software/Windows updates/various other changes. After the second or third time Windows reproted it could restore to my carefully saved restore point I gave up and now don't bother.

System Restore has restored my computer to an earlier state, but no system restore point has EVER saved one of my systems from a complete reformat and a reinstall. I might add that I have never been able to replace a registry with a saved registry. Generally, the attempt to replace the registry has ultimately led to a computer crash.

All other times it was thoroughly corrupted as well.

Shot the horse dead.

Recently, I inadvertently deleted a program (and a year's worth of related data). As a last try at recovery, I used System Restore. My last Restore point was earlier the same day. It worked like a charm, program and all data was rstored.