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Old XP System Restore Points in Vista

Locked

I have upgraded from XP Home to Vista Ultimate. I now have old XP Home system restore files (about 11GB on a 40GB disc) that I cannot remove. Any help would be appreciated.

1. I have permission to view the files
2. I have run the cacls commands as posted all over the net
3. I have turned off system restore in vista and then turned it back on again
4. I have tried just deleting the files
5. I have tried the “Disk Clean Up” remove old restore points. Vista doesnt seem to recognise the old restore points.

TIA

AJ

Topic

Clarifications

In reply to Old XP System Restore Points in Vista

Clarifications

Have you tried these things in Safe Mode?

In reply to Old XP System Restore Points in Vista

It may make a lot of difference

Have you tried ringing M$ for a solution?

In reply to Old XP System Restore Points in Vista

We are humble IT Pro’s most of which will not be seriously looking at Vista for quite some time because it is [b]A New Unknown OS[/b] with a heap of problems.

The maker of this item is the best place to turn to for help as they should know what to do to fix their own product though with an upgrade I personally think that you’ll be stuck with the XP Restore Points but for them to take 11 GIG sounds way over the top as XP Restore points do not restore the complete system just the registry so 11 GIG’s of Registry copies seem a lot to be looking at even on a computer that has been running for 10 years non stop.

Col

Fixed

In reply to Have you tried ringing M$ for a solution?

Well after trying to delete the files in Safe Mode, and even compressing them as I was resolved to just lose the disk space, I have actually managed to remove the files.

How??

Well you simply share the System Volume Information folder, give Everyone full control, Access the share from an XP machine and delete the files, then remove the share.

Finally a solution and I get back my disk space which i need.

Also so far i have found vista to be running quite well with Office 2007, Visual Studio 2005 and some older apps. So long as you turn off the automatic defrag and the search indexing, life is pretty sweet.

Thanks for the suggestions.

AJ

Awesome

In reply to Fixed

This is funny, back when Vista was in beta mode, I discovered this same exact method could be used to access the old “documents and settings” directory that was inaccessible from within Vista after an upgrade.

I just discovered the same exact issue you described here today, and found your post. Talk about killing 2 birds with one stone!

Thanks for the help.

Thanks!

In reply to Fixed

This fix helped me immensely! My husband’s computer turned out to have a virus in one of the old restore points and he couldn’t find a way to delete them, so his antivirus app was constantly popping up warnings. Now it’s fixed.

I discovered in the process of doing this that you can delete from another Vista computer as well. At one point, I forgot to go to the XP computer and tried it from the much closer 2nd Vista computer instead. This one is running Vista Home Premium; I don’t know if there would be a difference running Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate versions and trying this.

Excellent fix

In reply to Fixed

I have been trying for 2 days to delete some old restore points that were causing problems. The above worked perfectly.

You can delete files from the same machine

In reply to Fixed

You don’t need to go to another machine on the network. You can just open the Network and Sharing Center, click ‘View Computers and Devices’ and you should see your computer there. Open it and you’ll see your newly shared System Volume Information folder.

Thanks to AJ for the original solution. I recovered 9GB.

yup, it works

In reply to You can delete files from the same machine

You can also go through ‘show me all the shared network folders on this computer’

Thanks for the info, people. That freed up 1.2 gigs of XP restore points on my Vista rig.

THIS WORKED

In reply to Fixed

After Spending DAYS of trying to delete the system volume information on a drive I added to my vista box, and vista not deleting this HUG folder, I shared it, went to my xp box, and deleted all the gigs of crap that I don’t need..
Sharing it and deleting it from an XP box worked..
THANK YOU
Ken

Good

In reply to Old XP System Restore Points in Vista

on you. I will have to try and remember that.

cygwin to the rescue

In reply to Old XP System Restore Points in Vista

If you have cygwin installed, try:
/bin/rm -Rf RP*
while in the “System Volume Information/_restore{WHATEVER}”

This work for me, but I turn offed vista user access control protection stuff off a while ago though.

[Author]

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