Windows

In some instances where users have messed up thier configurations, trying to do a system restore is a timely method of resolving the issue, with a relatively high degree of success.

The downsides are that system restore point seem to take up a lot of space, and that when you are doing virus cleanups, if you don't turn system restores off, you could end up not being succesful in thoroughly cleaning.

If you had an organization with zero customization on the desktop, then you wouldn't need this function. But every org has users with specialized software/hardware/drivers etc. For those people system restore can fix things without causing them to reinstall all their custom stuff.

James

Actually.....we do much the same as yourself & use the same approach as James Linn.

We've implemented restore points on certain 'important' &/or 'troublesome' workstations.

In 90% of desktops it is NOT used. All user data is on the servers........and it's generally easier & faster just to re-image the box anyway.

In cases where we have implemented restore points - Laptops & Scientific Workstations we've recovered these easily with Winternals & restore points without much grief.

We've limited drive useage to 3% on all systems we use restore points on.

We use it on occaision but not from the gui. Its good for corrupted registry's because all you have to do is boot to the recovery console copy the repair registry to the working registry and then restore the last good working registry/restore point.

Without this a failed registry usually means your SOL, unless you have another recovery system in place.

P.S. Checkout these tools. Incredibly handy!

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

I just got Win XP Home. Right now system restore is active. I wish to use PartitionMagic to shrink the partition C: and to create a new extended partition with three new logical drives (FAT16 2GB). This will bring changes to the Master Boot Record of my hard drive. I guess system restore could cause some trouble, if I do not delete all system restore points. What Caveats do you see?
Regards, Gunnar

I would say that it does have its uses. There are things that you have to be aware of to use this tool properly, ie clearing restore points when cleaning out viruses, etc. But there have been a couple of times where it has really saved my bacon. A couple of times I had to restore because of some driver conflicts. System Restore got me back up much quicker than restoring from our backups or re-imaging my drive. The second use that I've had for it was actually recovering from some Trojans. I was stumped one day trying to clear out a trojan from one of the computers. It just wouldn't get cleaned. In thinking about how the Trojan works, I realized that part of what it does is to change registry settings, among the other things that it does. Part of System Restore is to restore a previously good working copy of your registry. To me, it made sense that running system restore would restore the registry back to the time before the trojan had been installed and it would reverse the settings that it had changed. Since I was out of options, I tried it and it worked. After verifying that things were working normally, I dumped the restore points and ran my anti-virus software to clean up any remnants. I've done this process several times and it has worked very well for me.

I have for about six months been turning this option off, both on my own network and clients systems.

Since I have been doing this I have had less problems with machines.

Whay I found was happening was clients were using this feature after a problem ond compunding the problem, ending up with a crashed system.

It would appear that the restore will after a couple of attempts just load the last configuration.

Has anyone else had this problem ???

Regards Carl

These are very useful in saving us from ourselves, especially with failed installations, registry changes, etc. They should be used in addition to backup data and images. BTW, if your system gets infected, you will need to temporarily disable system restore.

Craig Herberg