Restore points

[Guest]

I looked at my restore points and there were none. I created one manually
and went back to see if it was there and it was. When I reboot, however, the
restore point is gone. Sceduler and system restore services are running, not
at all low on disk space. Any ideas ??

 

[Harry Ohrn]

Bert Kinney MS MVP has arguably the best resource available on System
Restore. See if it points you in a direction that is helpful
http://bertk.mvps.org/

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I looked at my restore points and there were none. I created one
manually and went back to see if it was there and it was. When I
reboot, however, the restore point is gone. Sceduler and system
restore services are running, not at all low on disk space. Any
ideas ??

What are the settings?
It is recommended that you set the system restore size to around 1GB -
anything above that may cause corruption, etc.

 

[WaIIy]

What are the settings?
It is recommended that you set the system restore size to around 1GB -
anything above that may cause corruption, etc.

Not according to the people that anointed you.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I looked at my restore points and there were none. I created one
manually and went back to see if it was there and it was. When I
reboot, however, the restore point is gone. Sceduler and system
restore services are running, not at all low on disk space. Any
ideas ??

What are the settings?
It is recommended that you set the system restore size to around
1GB - anything above that may cause corruption, etc.

Not according to the people that anointed you.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx

Where in that document is there a recommendation for a specific size that
contradicts what I just said?
It only states the defaults that I see...

I defer to common sense and experience over time for my recommendation...

See Bert Kinney's web page on System Restore:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/healthy.html

Specifically:
Adjust the Disk Space Used (or data store) by System Restore. By default
System Restore will use 12% disk space for most size drives. With new larger
drives the data store can get quite large, which has been know to cause
problems in System Restore. Setting the data store to just under 1GB should
be adequate. Note: Reducing the data store size will purge the oldest
restore points on a FIFO (first in first out) bases and leave as many recent
restore points as the new size will allow. Restore points over 90 days are
purged automatically by default.


As for 'those who annointed' me <- so? They decided to award me for
volunteering my time and knowledge on a specific subject to help others
seeking help in these newsgroups. I did not ask for the award, nor does it
have any effect on how I answer questions. I answered questions here before
the award, I will likely answer questions here after the award is gone. I
try not to lean in any one direction when I answer questions and only give
the answers I think are the best/most complete that I can give.

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Dave,

Take a look at this page in particular.

Troubleshooting missing restore points:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/missingrps.html

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

 

[Bert Kinney]

What are the settings?
It is recommended that you set the system restore size to around 1GB -
anything above that may cause corruption, etc.

Not according to the people that anointed you.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx

Hi WaIIy,

When XP shipped in late 2001 the average drive size was small, compared too
todays standards. Twelve percent of say a 200 GB partition is 24 GB's, this
is far to much space to have set aside for holding restore points. Prier to
the introduction of Service Pack 2 for XP there were problems with restore
point corruption when storing large amounts of restore points. This is when
the it was first suggested to decrease the amount of space used to around 1
GB. Post Service Pack 2 this is much less of a problem. In real world
practice it is still a good suggestion.

The default setting for holding restore points for 90 is much to large and
misleading.

Why?

Restoring back more than an week or two can ofter cause more problems then
it solves. Any updates installed after the restore point being used will be
removed. And need to be reinstalled.

More inportantly, most applications installed after the restore point may
not function. What happens is, System Restore only removes monitored files
for the installed applications and the remaining files are left behind. This
can cause the application not to function. And in some cases, can also cause
the uninstall and reinstall process of the partially removed application to
fail. It is recommended to uninstall any applications that were installed
after the restore point you will be restoring to.

Every system setting and registry entry made after the restore point will be
gone.


For best results System Restore should be used ASAP after a problem is detected.


The monitoring all drives/partitions by default was a good intension, but
proved to cause additional problems, particularly when it comes to external
and and thumb drive, which were not very common back in 2001. The monitoring
of recovery partitions placed on the drive by OEM manufactures also lead to
restore point loss. In Windows Vista only the system partition is monitored
by default.

So you can see that over the years we have found that changes have had to be
made in how we configure and use System Restore in XP to provide best results.

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

 

[WaIIy]

Where in that document is there a recommendation for a specific size that
contradicts what I just said?

Here -
Q. How can I set the amount of space System Restore uses on my
disk? A.

Select Start, then Control Panel and double-click the System
icon. Then click on the System Restore tab on the dialog box.
Depending on your disk setup, do the following: •

Single partition: Adjust the space system restore uses on the
disk by moving the slider left to decrease space usage, or right
to increase space usage. The default maximum space usage is 12%.
•

Multiple partitions or multiple disks: Click on the drive you
want to adjust in the available drives section on the System
Restore page and then click the settings option. You can then
adjust the space system restore uses on that drive by moving the
slider to the left to decrease space usage, or right to increase
space usage. The default maximum space usage is 12%. Repeat for
each drive as necessary.

===============
Microsoft doesn't restrict, nor recommend restricting System Restore
to one gig.

It only states the defaults that I see...

Which in this day and age is way more than one gig.

I defer to common sense and experience over time for my recommendation...

See Bert Kinney's web page on System Restore:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/healthy.html

Specifically:
Adjust the Disk Space Used (or data store) by System Restore. By default
System Restore will use 12% disk space for most size drives. With new larger
drives the data store can get quite large, which has been know to cause
problems in System Restore. Setting the data store to just under 1GB should
be adequate. Note: Reducing the data store size will purge the oldest
restore points on a FIFO (first in first out) bases and leave as many recent
restore points as the new size will allow. Restore points over 90 days are
purged automatically by default.

What "problems" does a 12% System Restore create? What are the
problems with a System Restore over a gig. The site you referred to,
no you, yourself have stated the problems.
I just would like to know why Microsoft says 12% is okay and you don't.

As for 'those who annointed' me <- so? They decided to award me for
volunteering my time and knowledge on a specific subject to help others
seeking help in these newsgroups. I did not ask for the award, nor does it
have any effect on how I answer questions. I answered questions here before
the award, I will likely answer questions here after the award is gone. I
try not to lean in any one direction when I answer questions and only give
the answers I think are the best/most complete that I can give.

Sorry about the wisecrack, it was unwarranted and undeserved.

 

[WaIIy]

So you can see that over the years we have found that changes have had to be
made in how we configure and use System Restore in XP to provide best results.

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

I appreciate you taking the time to explain this in detail and I once
again apologize to you and the group for being a smartass.

 

[Bert Kinney]

I appreciate you taking the time to explain this in detail and I once
again apologize to you and the group for being a smartass.

You're welcome WaIIy. Glad to be of help.

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org