Selective Delete/Save Restore Points?

[CWLee]

Running Vista Ultimate 64-bit, OEM installed.

Is there an easy way to choose which Restore Points to
delete/save? I have looked and have not found it in the
obvious places.

Enlightenment appreciated.

--

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Running Vista Ultimate 64-bit, OEM installed.

Is there an easy way to choose which Restore Points to delete/save? I
have looked and have not found it in the obvious places.

Enlightenment appreciated.

No, you cannot selectively delete, but theoretically, you can delete all
points *before* a certain time, although I do not know a way to do this.
This is because the saved data is only /what has changed/ since the last
restore point. So if the last restore point was not there, the data is
meaningless.

ss.

 

[CWLee]

This is because the saved data is only /what has changed/
since the last restore point. So if the last restore
point was not there, the data is meaningless.

I don't think I understand what you mean.

It sounds like you are saying that, for example, the first
restore point (call it #1) is a full one, and later ones (#2

#n) merely reflect changes to #1. If that is true, then

deleting all but the most recent one would leave only a set
of changes, but not the original point to which those
changes applied.

Could you explain this in a different way.

Thanks.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

I don't think I understand what you mean.

It sounds like you are saying that, for example, the first restore point
(call it #1) is a full one, and later ones (#2
deleting all but the most recent one would leave only a set of changes,
but not the original point to which those changes applied.

Could you explain this in a different way.

Well, when you delete all but the last restore point, it actually deletes
all of them, and remakes the last one to be meaningful data, I would
imagine. It probably makes that remade restore point as the new baseline
from which all the new ones are made from. As that last one is only a
little different than the current state of the drive, it does not take that
long to make it. That must be why you cannot delete all the restore points
before any other time, even though it must be theoretically possible to do
so, as it would take far too long to calculate the new baseline data.

Volume Shadow Copies works in the same way. That's what it's called in
Server 2003, but I have forgotten what these are called in Vista. It's the
thing that saves different versions of the same file.

If anything more than just the changes to the file are saved, and the full
version of the file, (or in the case of System Restore, full state of the
hard drive), you can imagine how much drive space that this will take.

ss.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Well, when you delete all but the last restore point, it actually deletes
all of them, and remakes the last one to be meaningful data, I would
imagine. It probably makes that remade restore point as the new baseline
from which all the new ones are made from. As that last one is only a
little different than the current state of the drive, it does not take
that long to make it. That must be why you cannot delete all the restore
points before any other time, even though it must be theoretically
possible to do so, as it would take far too long to calculate the new
baseline data.

Volume Shadow Copies works in the same way. That's what it's called in
Server 2003, but I have forgotten what these are called in Vista. It's
the thing that saves different versions of the same file.

If anything more than just the changes to the file are saved, and the full
version of the file, (or in the case of System Restore, full state of the
hard drive), you can imagine how much drive space that this will take.

I've just been thinking about the implications of my theory to how it works,
and it does not explain how old restore points are deleted as and when the
data takes up more than x% of the hard drive space. So I must have got
something wrong about this baseline business. Maybe I have got the way it
records the data backwards, and it does it the other way around. Whatever
the case, each restore point is just the difference to the old one, and so
they have to be continuous.

ss.

 

[Richard G. Harper]

No, there is not. Restore points are threaded - the success of any given
restore point relies on the intact existence of the remaining chain of
points. That's why the only choice in Disk Cleanup is "Get rid of all but
the last restore point". It's worked that way since Windows ME and XP.