restore points

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Guest

I understand that restore points are stored for only 3 months. How can one
increase that length of time?
 
You can increase the amount of disk space allocated for system restore. Right click on My Computer
and select properties. Flip to the System Restore tab and select the drive in question and click on
settings. Increase the slider towards the right. The maximum you can allocate is 12% of the total
disk space.

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Anando
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Does that increase the 3 month period?
_______________________________________________________________
 
b11_ said:
I understand that restore points are stored for only 3 months. How
can one increase that length of time?
Click to expand...


You are subject to a maximum of 90 days and 12% of your drive. Increasing it
past 90 would not be a good idea. In fact, even 90 days is much more than is
useful. Don't make the common mistake of thinking of System Restore as a
substitute for a backup. It backs up the operating system only, and does
nothing for your data files, etc.

System Restore is a very useful tool for getting you out of certain kinds of
trouble, if you discover the problem quickly--normally within a week or two.
If you attempt to go back much further than that, you are likely to get many
files out of synch with the registry, and likely create more problems than
you solve.

I recommend *decreasing*, not increasing, the number of restore points you
keep, by lowering that 12% to something around 2GB.
 
Hi,

As Ken pointed out, restoring more than a week or two can cause more
problems than it solves.

On the following page there's a utility called "XPSystemRestoreLife.vbs"
that can be used to change the number of day restore points are held. I
would suggest setting it to 30 days.

Tips on keeping System Restore healthy:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/healthy.html
 
Hi,

No, the max is 90 days. If you want to be able to revert to an even older
condition, use a disk imaging program.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Today =?Utf-8?B?YjExXw==?= commented courteously on the
subject at hand
I understand that restore points are stored for only 3
months. How can one increase that length of time?
Click to expand...

You don't want them to last more than a few weeks, at most.
Restoring earlier than that is a guaranteed way to get a visit
from Murphy.

In my case, when I know I will be doing significant system work,
I create my own RPs and don't trust the app updater or installer
to do it right, or at all. I /always/ set an RP before letting
Bill the Gates install any "critical updates". When I'm in the
mood to do lots of RPs, I'll up the percent allocation, then cut
i5 back to 4-5% when things cool off. And, a couple times a
year, when I /know/ my system has been stable for a while, I'll
turn RP off, which deletes all of them, then turn it on again
immediately and set a manual RP that says "system stable, old
RPs deleted".
 
Today =?Utf-8?B?YjExXw==?= commented courteously on the
subject at hand
Does that increase the 3 month period?
Click to expand...

Ordinarily, XP writes one "system checkpoint" about every 24
hours, during a time when it detects your system isn't busy.
If no other RPs are being written, and you're maxed out at
12%, you could have a couple months worth before XP cleans
itself up without asking you. But, trust me, do /not/ try to
restore your system to 3 months ago even if you can!
 
b11_ said:
I understand that restore points are stored for only 3 months. How
can one increase that length of time?
Click to expand...

Why would you want to?

You only use that computer once every 91 days to do updates - then you
reboot and walk out of the room - not to see it again for another 91 days or
something? (That's the only way I could think of that you would need a
restore point that far back..)

Consider, instead - a backup regime. Use backup applications or imaging
applications or both. You can pretty well automate those.

XXCLONE is free.
http://www.xxclone.com/iscenter.htm
( Use it to backup: http://www.xxclone.com/itechnot.htm )

NTBackup is free.
http://www.winxptutor.com/ntbackup.htm
( Use it to backup: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422 )

Cobian Backup is free.
http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm
( Use it to backup:
http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/Cobian_Backup_7_Tutorial.htm )

Symantec/Norton Ghost
http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/

Acronis True Image
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage

BootItT NG
http://terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html
 
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