V
Vagabond Software
My first experience with System Restore was in Windows ME and as a result,
it was disabled on any Windows ME systems I assembled. Well, I've been
permitting the default System Restore settings to persist in all the Windows
XP computers I've been assembling, including my own.
This week, a combination of heat (no air conditioning in the house) and
being a little under-powered (350W) finally got to my power supply.
Fortunately, it had some built-in protection regulators that probably saved
my system components from damaged but caused itself to power off and on
again every 5 to 15 seconds.
The only operating system damage to come of this was a corrupted user
profile and a blanked servers.def file used for Avast anti-virus updating.
So, after installing the new Allied 500W power supply, I logged in to a
default Windows XP user profile.
I googled "Windows XP recover user profile" and the top hit was the
following lockergnome article:
Recover A Damaged Windows XP User Profile
http://tinyurl.com/74atm
The first suggestion was to use System Restore, which until yesterday I had
viewed with some skepticism. I guess I related it with my Windows ME
experience and saw it akin to the "Last Known Good" option following a
failed startup cycle. Last Known Good is exactly what you select if you
want to guarantee a repair install or complete re-install in your near
future.
I launched the System Restore wizard and selected a Restore Point from
Wednesday morning. After it did its thing and a system reboot, I logged in
to find my old profile and Desktop settings just as they were Wednesday
morning.
The remaining servers.def problem was quickly identified and resolved on the
Avast support forums:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=22061.0
Now my system is humming along (with a bit less noise) problem free, just as
it was before the power supply failure thanks (in large part) to System
Restore.
Carl
it was disabled on any Windows ME systems I assembled. Well, I've been
permitting the default System Restore settings to persist in all the Windows
XP computers I've been assembling, including my own.
This week, a combination of heat (no air conditioning in the house) and
being a little under-powered (350W) finally got to my power supply.
Fortunately, it had some built-in protection regulators that probably saved
my system components from damaged but caused itself to power off and on
again every 5 to 15 seconds.
The only operating system damage to come of this was a corrupted user
profile and a blanked servers.def file used for Avast anti-virus updating.
So, after installing the new Allied 500W power supply, I logged in to a
default Windows XP user profile.
I googled "Windows XP recover user profile" and the top hit was the
following lockergnome article:
Recover A Damaged Windows XP User Profile
http://tinyurl.com/74atm
The first suggestion was to use System Restore, which until yesterday I had
viewed with some skepticism. I guess I related it with my Windows ME
experience and saw it akin to the "Last Known Good" option following a
failed startup cycle. Last Known Good is exactly what you select if you
want to guarantee a repair install or complete re-install in your near
future.
I launched the System Restore wizard and selected a Restore Point from
Wednesday morning. After it did its thing and a system reboot, I logged in
to find my old profile and Desktop settings just as they were Wednesday
morning.
The remaining servers.def problem was quickly identified and resolved on the
Avast support forums:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=22061.0
Now my system is humming along (with a bit less noise) problem free, just as
it was before the power supply failure thanks (in large part) to System
Restore.
Carl