Restore Points

[annonymous]

I know there is a way of deleting all old stored Restore Points, but I have
forgotten how to do it, although I did do it once before.

I think it is time I did it again, so will someone knowledgeable remind me
how to do it? Thank you.

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

You can delete all but the last checkpoint via Disk Cleanup>More
Options>System Restore.

If you did want to delete *all* the checkpoints then you will have to turn
SR off/on

 

[All Things Mopar]

On this date, (e-mail address removed) extended
this wisdom for the consideration of other readers...

I know there is a way of deleting all old stored Restore
Points, but I have forgotten how to do it, although I did
do it once before.

I think it is time I did it again, so will someone
knowledgeable remind me how to do it? Thank you.

You need to give yourself administrative access to the System
Volume Information folder on your C:\ drive. I hope you've got
XP Pro, it is much harder to do this with the Home Edition.

First, be sure that simple file sharing is turned off. Then,
click on the Sharing and Security link for the SVI folder in
Properties and add yourself as an authorized user of this
folder. Of course, you have to have administrator power to do
that but you don't necessarily need to be logged on as /the/
Administrator for the PC.

The reason for turning simple file sharing off first is that
the Security tab is missing on the Properties page for a
folder if you don't. Since there is only simple file sharing
in Home, that makes it a lot tougher.

You can figure out which folders full of RP data you want to
delete by looking at the creation dates, but if you want to
verify which RP is which, look at the file rp.log with
notepad. It is a binary file, not really text, but the name
given to the RP can be read. It'll be System Checkpoint or a
name you gave it or whatever caused the RP to be created, such
as installing an XP patch, installing or un-installing
software and hardware, etc. Took me quite a while to find
which file contained the name of the RP, which was quite
frustrating.

If you have trouble figuring this out, post more questions. It
took me almost a week after I asked about this last year
because I couldn't follow the suggestions I was given. But,
once you "crack the code", it's a piece of cake.

Now, if somebody can only tell me /why/ users with
adminstrator power are locked out of the SVI folder in the
first place, I'd be interested to know! It really pisses me
off when Windoze decides to vainly try to protect me from
myself by restricting what I can do when I already have the
highest access level available.

Good luck.

 

[Bert Kinney]

The System Volume Information folder is hidden for good reason. Any changes made to this
folder or it contents will corrupt all existing restore points. That includes deleting
Individual restore points. The only way to remove individual restore points is to reduce
the disk space SR uses to store them. This will remove restore points on a FIFO (first in
first out) basis. Or as Will pointed out, all but the newest restore point can be deleted
using Disk Cleanup or all can be deleted by disabling SR. It's not necessary to enter the
SVI folder to do so.

For more on System Restore click on the link below my signature.

 

[All Things Mopar]

On this date, Bert Kinney extended this wisdom for the
consideration of other readers...

The System Volume Information folder is hidden for good
reason. Any changes made to this folder or it contents will
corrupt all existing restore points. That includes deleting
Individual restore points. The only way to remove
individual restore points is to reduce the disk space SR
uses to store them. This will remove restore points on a
FIFO (first in first out) basis. Or as Will pointed out,
all but the newest restore point can be deleted using Disk
Cleanup or all can be deleted by disabling SR. It's not
necessary to enter the SVI folder to do so.

What leads you to the statement that deleting RPs corrupts
previous and subsequent ones? I've not noticed that and I've
been manually cleaning my machine since I finally figured out
how to do it?

I'm not being a smart-ass, I really don't know the answer to my
questions. It seems that there's quite a lot of dis- and mis-
information here abouts that doesn't always box with my personal
experience.

 

[johnf]

Right click My Computer, go to Properties, System Restore, select your OS
drive, move the slider to about 4%. (OK).
This will reduce the cache capacity & remove most of the old restore
points - how many you want to remove depends on the slider setting. It' a
matter of slider %age & trial, as to how many you want to get rid of.

 

[Bert Kinney]

On this date, Bert Kinney extended this wisdom for the
consideration of other readers...


What leads you to the statement that deleting RPs corrupts
previous and subsequent ones? I've not noticed that and
I've been manually cleaning my machine since I finally
figured out how to do it?

I'm not being a smart-ass, I really don't know the answer
to my questions. It seems that there's quite a lot of
dis- and mis- information here abouts that doesn't always
box with my personal experience.

I would be glad to explain it.

Each restore points is chained (or linked) together with previous restore points. When you
choose a restore point, all previous restore point are required to complete the restore.
This reduces the amount of disk space needed to hold restore points and increased
performance. 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 the log finds an inconsistency between these
files, restore point corruption will 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.

 

[All Things Mopar]

On this date, Bert Kinney extended this wisdom for the
consideration of other readers...

I would be glad to explain it.

Each restore points is chained (or linked) together with
previous restore points. When you choose a restore point,
all previous restore point are required to complete the
restore. This reduces the amount of disk space needed to
hold restore points and increased performance. 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 the log finds an inconsistency
between these files, restore point corruption will 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.

OK, but I've never had a problem...