System Restore in XP

[hackdoom]

Hey, everybody. I'm in need of a free tool/way of creating a system restore point in Windows XP; something that will allow me to go back to a safe state of my computer. Please, give me your opinions on what I should do/use. Much appreciated.

[+allan MVC]

Everyone should own and use a disk imaging utility. There are many good ones, including free options (http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml). It is the safest, most secure method of providing a backup to which you can restore at any time (it should be used on a regular basis). If you just want to backup your registry, you can use ERUNT (free) or just use regedit and export the registry to a location of your choosing (though ERUNT is an outstanding utility).

[Madoshi]

Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore

once there, it will show an option to create a Restore Point. this should force a manual restore point to be made.

Restore points are also automatically made when installing programs that use the Windows Installer (.msi)

[+allan MVC]

Unfortunately, the built in System Restore is great - until you need it. It always seems to fail only when it's most needed. Okay, for some people System Restore always works but........... In my opinion, the options I mentioned above are by far your best bet(s).

[Madoshi]

i know some people who swear by it - same people beg me for re-installs all the time :laugh:

personally i always disable it - never bothered using it myself, never liked the idea of it at all

[hackdoom]

Wow, I completely overlooked the System Restore option under System Tools. Thing is, I have also heard that it's not the best tool to use as it might fail you. It's funny that I searched for it before, but didn't see it there. My eyes are clearly failing me. :hmmm: I'm going to try +allan's solutions first and see if those do the job. If not, I'll just use System Restore.

Thank you +allan and Wuffy. I really appreciate all of your help. :happy:

[+allan MVC]

You're very welcome.

[MeddleMan]

There is only one problem with system restore and this has happened to me

Once when I tried to restore back to a point before I "accidentally" got rid of all of those annoying Acer custom programs on my laptop for WiFi, for Blue tooth, for power settings, every other little thing under the sun and other little things progs I am NEVER going to use like that weird one with the key icon. But later I realized that the standard windows ones were either not installed as OEM (probably because of conflicts) so I was left with nothing. Then when I tried to use system restore, it would sort of restore, restart the computer, then come up with an error message saying nothing had been restored. So nothing worked. In the end I just used the hidden recovery partition (THANKYOU ACER!!!!) and all was good.

So yeah, the real problem is that the Windows System restore is good in case you have INSTALLED something you later realized was a virus or something (that wasn't picked up by Nod32 or Norton) and THEN you can use the system restore. But what sucks is that it will never EVER restore personal files or documents. That's why the Mac Time Capsule was really good (until it broke 6 months later).

So like allan says, get a disk imaging utility and backup as much of your stuff regularly (like once every two months) r rewritable DVDs

(I wish they would hurry up with easily avaliableblu-ray writers)

Cheers

[JRosenfeld]

So yeah, the real problem is that the Windows System restore is good in case you have INSTALLED something you later realized was a virus or something (that wasn't picked up by Nod32 or Norton) and THEN you can use the system restore. But what sucks is that it will never EVER restore personal files or documents. So like allan says, get a disk imaging utility and backup as much of your stuff regularly (like once every two months) r rewritable DVDs

(I wish they would hurry up with easily avaliableblu-ray writers)

Cheers

That's why it's called system restore. Your personal files are not part of the system.

[Guest xiphi]

So yeah, the real problem is that the Windows System restore is good in case you have INSTALLED something you later realized was a virus or something (that wasn't picked up by Nod32 or Norton) and THEN you can use the system restore. But what sucks is that it will never EVER restore personal files or documents. That's why the Mac Time Capsule was really good (until it broke 6 months later).

I know Vista Business/Ultimate and 7 Professional/Ultimate have Previous Versions where you can restore your personal files.

[theclueless]

personally i found system restore is utterly useless: whatever problem caused system failure on the first place is still there after restore, and you will run into it again later

i setup my system so i have one drive for OS and one drive for documents/musics/downloads/misc, and a portable hard drive dedicated to make OS drive images; so if something went haywire, i can always restore the entire OS hard drive image, instead just system files, and leave all my personal files alone

[odious_m]

....a portable hard drive dedicated to make OS drive images; so if something went haywire,....

Yes, that's the same way that I've got mine setup--it's the best (only?) way...

An image of the OS drive/partition and a backup of the media/doc files.

I use both Ghost and Acronis to image the OS, depending on the system. And Retrospect for the media/docs.

[+allan MVC]

I know Vista Business/Ultimate and 7 Professional/Ultimate have Previous Versions where you can restore your personal files.

They have other backup options, but NO version of system restore backs up personal data.

[Guest xiphi]

They have other backup options, but NO version of system restore backs up personal data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy#W...Vista_and_later

[+allan MVC]

What is it you're trying to show us?

[VPuccetti]

Ntfsbackup is the built in back up manager that can save a systems state and data, but is just horrible to use.

I would strongly suggest in investing in Acronis True Image for your back up needs. I have the server enterprise running on all my servers at work and all the images are backed up nightly.

System restore is just crap...