System restore: how large ?

[Guest]

Hi, my C: partition is 20 GB with 50% free space. I monitor only this
partition with system restore. How large should I expect that my system
restore folder is if I only keep the most recent restore point? Is that
possible to say?

Currently it is about 1,2 GB which to me seems a little bit excessive...

??

Thanks!

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi, my C: partition is 20 GB with 50% free space. I monitor only this
partition with system restore. How large should I expect that my
system restore folder is if I only keep the most recent restore
point? Is that possible to say?

Currently it is about 1,2 GB which to me seems a little bit
excessive...

Why do you want only the most recent restore point? That would substantially
decrease the amount of protection System restore provides

Your 1.2GB should give you a week or two of restore points, which is about
right for most people. You can lower it if you want, but I wouldn't go below
half of that or so.

 

[Guest]

Why do you want only the most recent restore point? That would substantially
decrease the amount of protection System restore provides

Your 1.2GB should give you a week or two of restore points, which is about
right for most people. You can lower it if you want, but I wouldn't go below
half of that or so.

It's not that I necessarily only want to have 1 restore point, only that
when I have only one restore point it takes up 1,2 Gb which to me seemed very
much. That is, I was wondering if I am 'getting' unnecessarily large restore
points for some reason.

 

[Bert Kinney]

It's not that I necessarily only want to have 1 restore point, only
that
when I have only one restore point it takes up 1,2 Gb which to me
seemed very
much. That is, I was wondering if I am 'getting' unnecessarily large
restore
points for some reason.

If the only restore point is indeed 1.2gb's, then I would suspect Zone
Alarm version 6.5.

Let's take a look at Event Viewer for any System Restore logs that may
have been created recently that may help us diagnose the problem.

Go to Start - Run and type eventvwr.msc and press enter.
Click on System in the left pane.
Click the gray title "Source" at the top of the source name column in
the right pane to sort by source name, look for "sr" and "srservice".
Double click on each of these events, then click on the button below the
two arrows in the upper right corner. This will copy the event
information to the clipboard. Paste the information for each of the two
event here. There's no need to post duplicate Event ID's.

How do I use the Event Viewer to search for System Restore logs?
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/source.html

 

[Guest]

If the only restore point is indeed 1.2gb's, then I would suspect Zone
Alarm version 6.5.

Let's take a look at Event Viewer for any System Restore logs that may
have been created recently that may help us diagnose the problem.

Go to Start - Run and type eventvwr.msc and press enter.
Click on System in the left pane.
Click the gray title "Source" at the top of the source name column in
the right pane to sort by source name, look for "sr" and "srservice".
Double click on each of these events, then click on the button below the
two arrows in the upper right corner. This will copy the event
information to the clipboard. Paste the information for each of the two
event here. There's no need to post duplicate Event ID's.

How do I use the Event Viewer to search for System Restore logs?
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/source.html

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

Hi,

I have no SR entries in the log, only several SRSERVICE. They all contain
very basic info such as this one which is the most recent (for the purposes
of this troubleshooting I turned off system restore, made sure the 'system
folder information' folder under C: was empty and then rebooted before I
turned it on again after which I disabled for all drives apart from C: upon
which I rebooted again.):

----------------
Event Type: Information
Event Source: SRService
Event Category: None
Event ID: 115
Date: 2006-08-06
Time: 16:49:00
User: N/A
Computer: NIBELHEIM
Description:
System Restore monitoring was enabled on all drives.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
--------------

I use Zone Alarm 6.1.744. I tried out 6.5 a month ago but immediately
reverted back to 6.1 because the new version gave me email problems.

(Incidently after turning off system restore and re-enabling it I can no
longer view the contents of my 'system folder information' folders. I always
get Access denied error message, even when logged in as administrator. In
folder properties it reports 0 bytes usage but right after re-enabling system
restore on C: I could see the free disk space drop about 400MB.)

 

[Guest]

Of course I mean SYSTEM VOLUME INFORMATION and not system folder information
as I erroneously wrote above....

 

[Guest]

update:

Figured out how to give myself access to view folder contents.
Also created a restore point in addition to the one that was presumably
created when re-enabling system restore above.

This is a screenshot of current 'restore point' folder contents.

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/6070/sysrestorete0.jpg

Appears that my computer does not generate 1,2 GB restore points any more.
Perhaps the act of turning it off completely and then re-enabling it
defaulted some setting that was inflating my restore points? Or maybe I am in
for a surprise to see new gigantesque restore points being generated in a few
days?

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Peter,

The size of the restore points in the screen shot looks good. I suspect
turning SR off than on again and deleting all restore points fixed the
problem. Zone Alarm 6.5 was responsible for creating very large .rdb
files on the system which are monitored by System Restore. In turn
causing the very large restore point size.
ZA Free bloats System Restore - Beware - General - Zone Labs User Forum
http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=gen&message.id=34871

It appears that simply uninstalling ZA 6.5 and installing a prier
version does not fix the problem. Emptying the SVI folder is also
needed. Can you confirm this?

 

[Guest]

Hi Peter,

The size of the restore points in the screen shot looks good. I suspect
turning SR off than on again and deleting all restore points fixed the
problem. Zone Alarm 6.5 was responsible for creating very large .rdb
files on the system which are monitored by System Restore. In turn
causing the very large restore point size.
ZA Free bloats System Restore - Beware - General - Zone Labs User Forum
http://forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/board/message?board.id=gen&message.id=34871

It appears that simply uninstalling ZA 6.5 and installing a prier
version does not fix the problem. Emptying the SVI folder is also
needed. Can you confirm this?

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

I am not sure I can confirm nor disconfirm. I am using the paid version of
ZA 6.1.744 and not the free version. Before you brought this to my attention
in the post above I did not look for *.rdb files in my 1,2 GB folder so I
don't know if there were lots of them there. Currently I have 9 apparently
similar RDB files in my RP folder. But they do not multiply at the rate
described by some users over at the Zone Alarm forum (i.e. every 2 or 3
minutes).

I have over the last 3or 4 hours, however, played around with an application
that creates custom autorun-files (splash screens or small menus) to be added
to CD-roms, and after running that application several times as well as
trying out created output I notice now that system restore has established 56
copies of the autorun executable (4+MB) in the RP folder during these 3 or 4
hours.

Perhaps there is something fishy also with System restore and not only Zone
Alarm?

 

[Bert Kinney]

Peter wrote:
I am not sure I can confirm nor disconfirm. I am using the paid
version of
ZA 6.1.744 and not the free version. Before you brought this to my
attention
in the post above I did not look for *.rdb files in my 1,2 GB folder
so I
don't know if there were lots of them there. Currently I have 9
apparently
similar RDB files in my RP folder. But they do not multiply at the
rate
described by some users over at the Zone Alarm forum (i.e. every 2 or
3 minutes).

The large .rdb files were being created by ZA ver. 6.5.722, paid for
and free version. To have the smaller size .rdb files within the
restore points is normal because they are monitored files.

I have over the last 3or 4 hours, however, played around with an
application
that creates custom autorun-files (splash screens or small menus) to
be added
to CD-roms, and after running that application several times as well
as
trying out created output I notice now that system restore has
established 56
copies of the autorun executable (4+MB) in the RP folder during these
3 or 4 hours.

If these are monitored file types then they will be found in the restore
point folder.

Perhaps there is something fishy also with System restore and not only
Zone Alarm?

It sounds to me like SR is doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Unless the SVI folder starts growing very large again, I would forget
about it. In most cases the SVI folder is hidden for good reason. <g>

 

[Guest]

In most cases the SVI folder is hidden for good reason. <g>

Quite right. I should be content now that my restore points are more normal.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Bert Kinney]

Quite right. I should be content now that my restore points are more
normal.
Thanks for your help!

You're welcome Peter.