system restore questions

[Marcy]

Hi, On my laptop, I did a system restore for to the beginning of May. It
corrected the problem I had with a non-microsoft program.
Ironically, my desktop was having the same problem. A system restore would
surely fix the problem on this unit as well. But the problem was that the
restore points only went back 3-4 days. Then, an hour later, it had changed
to the restore point being today. Still, neither will work. The disk space
usage slider is set to 12% on C drive.
Well, figuring that there is nothing to do this time, what can I do for next
time to ensure that there are enough restore points. Still, from what I
understand, the more restore points there is, the more disk space it uses
up. I only have 256 ram & very basic desktop. any suggestions on how to set
it to have at least one R. Pt per week? thanks for your ideas

 

[Simon]

Frequently Asked Questions Regardind System Restore in XP,
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx

Hope this Helps,

Simon.
_____________

 

[Brian A.]

You don't mention the size of the drive or how much is unused. If you are low on drive space SR will not create RP's until enough space is available for it.

--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Ron Martell]

Hi, On my laptop, I did a system restore for to the beginning of May. It
corrected the problem I had with a non-microsoft program.
Ironically, my desktop was having the same problem. A system restore would
surely fix the problem on this unit as well. But the problem was that the
restore points only went back 3-4 days. Then, an hour later, it had changed
to the restore point being today. Still, neither will work. The disk space
usage slider is set to 12% on C drive.
Well, figuring that there is nothing to do this time, what can I do for next
time to ensure that there are enough restore points. Still, from what I
understand, the more restore points there is, the more disk space it uses
up. I only have 256 ram & very basic desktop. any suggestions on how to set
it to have at least one R. Pt per week? thanks for your ideas

See MVP Bert Kinney's System Restore pages:
http://bertk.mvps.org/index.html

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Guest]

The amount of memory (ram, in your case 256MB) will not affect storage space.
RAM is used to hold information you're currently using, storage (hard drive
space) is used to store restore points, files, and data that can be called
upon (copied into RAM tempoarily) later.

 

[Brian A.]

The amount of memory (ram, in your case 256MB) will not affect storage space.
RAM is used to hold information you're currently using, storage (hard drive
space) is used to store restore points, files, and data that can be called
upon (copied into RAM tempoarily) later.

Wrong! Can you say Page File? If a user is intensive with apps for working and uses up the available RAM, then the page file on the HD is used. In the case of the OP, 12% of the HD space is allocated for the page file.



--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Guest]

That is true, I just typically regard the page file as an extension of RAM
but negligable on the amount of hard drive space it consumes because it's
[usually] a dynamic size and still, information in the page file has to
swapped back to memory before you can use it anyway... of course that again
degrades performance a lot, meaning that again, adding more RAM can be one of
the cheapest and easiest ways to increase performance.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Wrong! Can you say Page File? If a user is intensive with apps for
working and uses up the available RAM, then the page file on the HD
is used. In the case of the OP, 12% of the HD space is allocated
for the page file.

Brian, as I understood the OP, he said that 12% of the drive is used for
System Restore, not the page file.

To the OP: although 12% of the drive for the page file is the default (and
the maximum), in most cases, that's much too much. From a practical
standpoint, System Restore is only good for restoring the system to a point
a maximum of a week or two earlier. If you try to go back much further than
that, you ususally end up getting multiple things out of synch with each
another. I recommend setting the page file slider to a point that gives you
about a week or two, and that's sufficient.

 

[Brian A.]

Brian, as I understood the OP, he said that 12% of the drive is used for
System Restore, not the page file.

And you are quite correct Sir. Thanks for setting that straight.

To the OP: although 12% of the drive for the page file is the default (and
the maximum), in most cases, that's much too much. From a practical
standpoint, System Restore is only good for restoring the system to a point
a maximum of a week or two earlier. If you try to go back much further than
that, you ususally end up getting multiple things out of synch with each
another. I recommend setting the page file slider to a point that gives you
about a week or two, and that's sufficient.

I've hated it from the very first time I used it. I figured I'd have a go at it, it didn't make much of a difference between to and fro so I simply used a Ghost image to set things the way I wanted. One thing I've learnt in my messin's is to create an image before any install/uninstall because things really do go "Bump", and not only in the night.


--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375