Gabriele Neukam said:
On that special day, Shane, (
[email protected]) said...
If you want to give us the idea that system restore is the ultimate
solution to a screwed up computer, you are misunderstanding something.
Well, no, that's not what I want to do and I don't see how you could get the
idea that it was.
It cannot be a do-it-all wonder. It can replace some files with older
versions, and replace messed up registries, and that's it.
Right. And that's all it needs to do.
I myself deactivated my system restore in Windows ME in late 2000, and
guess what. My machine never was screwed up, didn't get infected by any
worm although there were dozens if not hundreds in the mail box, and
hasn't yet been trojanized or hijacked.
So what?
Why? I don't run Outlook Express for fetching mail, but T-Online eMail,
which is an extremely "dumb" mail program, and cannot be coaxed to "run"
"wavefiles" because of a malformed attachment declaration. And I surf
with opera or Mozilla, but never with an Internet Explorer.
I run Internet Explorer and Outlook Express (and Outlook) and I don't get
viruses, trojans, worms or other malware. So you see, Gabriele, it has
nothing whatsoever to do with what you or I achieve. It is in fact about
what those who are insufficiently knowledgable or indeed careful, fail to
achieve, and that they are precisely the ones most likely to benefit from
the ability to reverse loss of network settings, say, having cleaned
malware, with a couple of clicks and the minimum of technical instruction.
So my system is free of any given malware, and this WITHOUT system
restore. Someone who cannot keep his computer clean because of too basic
knowledge about how to operate it, will probably also be unable to tell
apart which restore point might be safe, and which not. And if the
Yes, well that's what I mean about elitism. Learning the principles of Safe
Hex is - except for those pre-disposed to the kind of logical thinking that
comes easily to the computer geek, ie one who is good at mathematics, ie not
the majority of the population - requires something of a philosophical
shift. The requisite understanding of System Restore can be adequately
expressed in a very short paragraph that large numbers of people who are not
innately computer-literate are nonetheless intelligent enough to understand.
Add to this the fact that most viruses are almost certainly discovered
almost immediately following infection and restoring a day or two before
one's AV notified of it will usually be sufficient.
When (if) one suggests the use of System Restore following a malware
infection, one includes - inseperably - the proviso that one restore back to
before the infection. This is leaving the decision about whether or not that
date can be reliably determined, to the user. Unlike - apparently - you, I
do not consider everyone who is not a geek to be stupid.
But bear in mind - and one wonders who the stupid one is here - that at no
point was I suggesting using System Restore to recover from an infection,
but to return to square one in the event of the cleaning causing problems.
malware has planted itself into the _RESTORE folder, it might restore
itself into activity, exactly what you DON'T want to happen.
I assume this is your English rather than that you don't know that malware
does not infiltrate _Restore. System File Protection stops that happening
and, as I said, if the malware can circumvent SFP it really has no need to
infiltrate System Restore. Any arguments along the lines of malware
infiltrating System Restore make no sense.
System restore might work ok in exactly one case - you install a new
driver or a botched Norton, and after restart, your machine gives a lot
of errors. Restoring *immediately* after the screw up, can fix this.
Spoken like someone who has System Restore disabled.
But even then, you have to be able to at least start *into* Windows. If
all you get is a blue screen and a "Windows will now shut down", your
wonderful system restore is moot. Because it can only be run from
*inside* Windows.
System Restore can be run without starting Explorer in the same way Zvi's
Togglemod works. But if you can't even get that far then, no, System Restore
is useless. But then I never remotely suggested System Restore was a cure
all.
Acronis True Image, PowerQuest Drive Image and Norton Ghost on the other
hand, can be run from *outside* Windows. This is what JAD was referring
to, when he spoke of a BACK UP.
Yes, I know. I use Drive Image. Far more people have System Restore than a
drive imaging program and of those who do, few will be making backups more
than once a week.
Never realised how obnoxious you are.
Shane
