Alternate to XP System Restore Points

[kj]

Anyone know of a program that will allow me to make various system
restore points, and keep them until I choose to delete them? If I want
to restore, I want to be able to choose from which among them I wish to
restore to, and which to delete.

I tried this today with XP's built-in restore system. I made 2 or 3
system restore points throughout the morning, but later when I went to
see if they were there, XP had erased them all to keep the last one it
made by default when I had to reboot after installing the trial software
I was trying. Now it so happens I'm going to keep that software and I
don't want to restore, but I want to know in the future I can restore
if I need to. (I have tens of GBs of space, and restore settings are set
to allow a gig of restore space, so it did not erase the previous points
b/c of space.)

I heard FirstDefense, RestoreIt are pretty good. (GoBack makes
incremental stacks for restore points, which I don't want. I want
snapshots.) Anyone know of any others? I'd like something I can download
to try. I think the above need to be purchased outright.

Thanks and Happy New Year,
KJ

 

[John]

Windows System restore will save as many restore points as you need, by
default a restore point is made when installng new software or adding
hardware, the only limit is how much hard disk space you allocate to system
restore.

If you need to go down the road of a 3rd party software Acronis Trueimage is
a very good backup software
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Regards

John

 

[Gerry Cornell]

KJ

What is the disk space setting for System Restore Points?
Is it set to the maximum of 12% of drive?

Right click on the My Computer icon on your Desktop and
select Properties, System Restore, Settings.

Perhaps Erunt might suit your needs:
http://majorgeeks.com/Erunt_d1267.html

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi KJ,

No, this would not work. System Restore is not a backup program and
should not be depended on to do so.

By designed and under normal conditions System Restore will
automatically create a new restore point every 24 hours.

When the allotted disk space is reached, the oldest restore point will
be purged on a first in first out (FIFO) basis. Otherwise, restore
points over 90 days are purged automatically by default.

Each one of these restore points are chained (or linked) together with
previous restore points. When a restore point is chosen, all restore
point created prior to that restore point are also required to complete
the restoration.

While all of this is going on, in real time, a log is being created or
updated that tracks the consistency between the files System Restore is
monitoring, and the files that are actually backed up. If an
inconsistency is found between the log file and the files located in the
System Volume Information folder, restore point corruption can occur. In
turn this causes the chain to become broken and any prior restore points
to become useless, thus causing System Restore to fail at a restore. At
this point all restore points would have to be purged to correct the
corruption. So you can see, backing up and restoring restore points
would cause an inconsistency in the restore log thus causing corruption
and the loss of all restore points.

Note: Any changes made within the System Volume Information folder
(where System Restore stores restore information) will almost certainly
cause the same corruption.

Your best bet is to search for a backup application to suit your needs.

 

[kj]

Windows System restore will save as many restore points as you need, by
default a restore point is made when installng new software or adding
hardware, the only limit is how much hard disk space you allocate to system
restore.

I had by default, the max limit I could allocate. And it did not let me
make multiple restore points -- or rather, I could make them, but they
were not saved. Only the last one that XP made on its own was saved.

I am reminded of the very simple, handy program called Config.bak that I
used with Win98 to make copies of the reg to roll back to whenever I
wanted. I thought System Restore in XP worked the same way but it
appears to be very inflexible.

If you need to go down the road of a 3rd party software Acronis Trueimage is
a very good backup software
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

Regards

John

Thanks for that, John.

KJ

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Windows System restore will save as many restore points as you need,

Not quite. There are two limits:

1. You can't use more than 12% of the drive for Restore Points.

2. You can't keep Restore Points more than 90 days.

by default a restore point is made when installng new software or
adding hardware,

Restore Points are made daily.Some soiftware installations may create
Restore Points, but mot all do.

KJ, what you want to do is generally infeasible. Restore Points more than a
couple of weeks old are usually useless, because too many things have
changed on the system and the Restore Points get out of synch with them.

the only limit is how much hard disk space you
allocate to system restore.

If you need to go down the road of a 3rd party software Acronis
Trueimage is a very good backup software

Don't mix up the Windows System Restore feature with backup. They are two
very different things. For one thing, System Restore does nothing to back up
your data, normally the most important thing you need to back up.