System Restore: A Pleasant Surprise

[Syed Zeeshan Haider]

Hello Everybody,

I recently began to feel that I had got some spies (yes, again). Anti-spy
softwares were detecting them but were unable to remove them. One
spy-downloader was declared as virus by Nortan AntiVirus (SURPRISE FROM
SYMANTEC). I personally think that spies must be considered viruses as to
suppress anti-spy technologies and system securities, they act somewhat like
viruses.

Anyhow, when I realized that I had been struck again by viruses (cough)
spies, I began to think about options at hand. The most devastating option
was to format C and reinstall WinXP. But I wanted to avoid it. Suddenly some
flash struck into me and I decided to give System Restore utility of WinXP a
shot. I restored system to two days ago.

I lost some recent installation and some new *.exe, which I had downloaded
from internet. Well, not a big deal! But I completely got rid of spies. WHAT
a PLEASANT Surprise!
Any comments on it?

How was it possible? Can we consider System Restore an option to remove
spies?

Thanks for your time!

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Not really, because some install themselves into the system restore files..

 

[Alex Nichol]

I lost some recent installation and some new *.exe, which I had downloaded
from internet. Well, not a big deal! But I completely got rid of spies. WHAT
a PLEASANT Surprise!
Any comments on it?

How was it possible? Can we consider System Restore an option to remove
spies?

See the FAQ at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/faqsrwxp.mspx
SR backs up the registry, and maintains records in points, linked to
each other, containing system files that have been replaced. A restore
puts all this back to the state it was in at the point - including
removing relevant files that were not there in the first place. It is,
as you found, a very useful short term clean up tool, but is not a
substitute for proper backup (especially as it deliberately excludes
user and document files)