Luon--
Two causes for a failed SR could be 1) corrupt restore points or 2) restore
points you can't reach if you are using XP not updated to at least Service
Pack 1. Corrupt restore points are often caused if you have shutdown
(electively or because you crashed) without all programs being properly
closed first. Event Viewer "eventvwr.msc" in the run box, will bring up a
0xc0000040 error. Also turning off system restore will delete all restore
points. If you are using XP not updated to SP1, SP1 corrected a "locked
file issue" that apparently was keeping users from reaching their restore
points.
See this writeup at *Kelly's XP Site* on SR from a member of the Microsoft
SR team and this information from the bottom of the System Restore Page:
System Restore for Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_restore.htm
Excerpted from this page:
Highlights of System Restore fixes included in SP1
1. Fix for SR not launching due to the framedyn.dll error you all have been
reporting.
2. No calendar availaible in the SR wizard to select restore points due to
the the .htc file association being knocked out in the
registry has been fixed.
3. A fix for SR failing restores. A lot of you were seeing failed restores
when restoring to any restore point. Although some of
it was attributed to SR data store corruption, in most cases it was
possibly due to locked file issues causing the restore
process to fail, especially in scenarios where fast user switching was
used. This was a known issue which is now fixed in in
SP1.
This will hopefully resolve all cases for failed restores and it would
be great if all of you running into this problem could
upgrade to SP1 and provide us feedback on this issue, whether it has
resolved the problem for you or not.
4. Fix for drive table inconsistency on a machine causing SR to not create
restore points.
5. Security fixes for SR to keep away those terrible hackers and viruses.
So upgrade to SP1 and provide us with some feedback on your issues with SR
and whether they are now resolved, especially when dealing with failed
restores.
Anshul Rawat [MS]
System Restore, Windows XP
Also see this MSKB:
Troubleshooting System Restore in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q302/7/96.asp&NoWebContent=1
Also make sure you're not fooled by the "blank calender appearance:"
System Restore Tool Displays a Blank Calendar in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q313853
Chad Harris
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