system restore won't start - vista premium

[Guest]

I've tried to use the system restore for a gateway running vista premium. I
receive this message box:

There was an unexpected error.
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
(0X80070078)
System Restore will now close.

I just bought the computer system last Wednesday, can anybody give me some
help as to why this happened and how to correct it. I downloaded DirectX and
I don't think I need it, so I want to get rid of it. I used system restore
with my hp running XP quite often.

 

[Yuriy Shkolnikov [MSFT]]

Try to check that you don't have any files with & (ampersand) in it. I could
trigger this kind of issue...

 

[Guest]

i did a file search for &, it returned 2710 folders/files. i did not see any
& in the names of these folders/files.

 

[Jill Zoeller [MSFT]]

I'm checking on this for you. I haven't seen this particular error before.

 

[Guest]

I'm curious about this. Is Vista the only operating system installed on this
"Gateway"? Was the drive containing the Vista installation connected
(directly, through a drive controller) to a machine on which Windows XP was
running? I had a friend who removed the system drive from his new Vista
system and connected the drive through the controller on his old Windows XP
system. Windows XP's system restore "ate" the system restore points on the
Vista drive. You get the same issues, of course, when dual booting the two
operating systems -- unless you're very careful to hide the Vista
installation from XP. But the non-dual-boot setup in which my friend was
merely trying to copy the data from his XP drive to his new Vista drive was,
I think, a little different. I say "I think" because my friend is not a
techie, didn't pay much attention to the error messages he saw, and I was not
there.

 

[Guest]

i have networked (router) this gateway, which has only vista (bought the
computer system with vista already installed from the store), a hp desktop
that runs XP, and a gateway laptop that also runs XP. i have them networked
for internet use on any of the computers and did file transfering over the
network.

i'll gladly answer questions about this. i know i'm going to need system
restore in the future, if not sooner.

 

[Guest]

Heh-heh. Okay. I'm really going to need some help on this one. I'm kind of
confused now. You have to understand that the word "gateway" has a particular
meaning to sysadmins (guys like me). A "gateway" in networking parlance, is a
computer to which other computers look for certain types of information --
like, for instance, the path to an Internet or network connection.

But I believe you're using "gateway" to mean "Gateway", as in the brand
name. It would be helpful if you could tell us the ROLES of the systems in
this network, as opposed to their brand names (which are totally unimportant,
insofar as their functions are concerned). Try to be as specific as you can
about the way things are arranged, because I'm just about totally in the dark
right now.

I'm hoping someone smarter than me happens along and can figure out what is
confusing me right now. Tell us whether or not you have a separate router for
your network or whether you are actually using Internet Connection Sharing on
one of those PCs (It would have to have TWO network interface cards) to allow
the other computers to get to the Internet. I may have missed something in
the way you've worded your query that others will spot. But right now I'm
really confused.

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

sorry about the confusion - i had no idea (obviously) that gateway meant
that. this is my home computer system. i have a brand new computer running
vista premium (os pre-installed), another desktop computer running XP and a
laptop also running XP. they are connected together by a broadband router.

 

[Guest]

Don't be sorry. I'm pretty sure I was the only person who was confused. I
just happened to have seized upon the wrong words when I read your posts.

I have to say that this is a mystery to me. From the information you've
given I can't think of any known reason why System Restore should not be
working on that new computer. I see now something else that hadn't registered
in my feeble mind the first time through. It looks as though you're saying
that you downloaded a DirectX package of some kind -- was that for the new
computer? I wasn't aware that there were any updates for DirectX that would
be later than what comes with Vista. But I wouldn't have expected an older
package to even TRY to install on Vista. I would think it would just warn you
and quit.

Are you saying that you actually installed this DirectX software, and that
something went wrong with the system, so you resorted to System Restore, and
THAT was when you saw the error messages with respect to System Restore? If
you can provide some detail about that whole process (whether or not I have
it right) and, also, about any other drivers / software you installed on the
system before the trouble started it might help someone figure out what's
going on here.

But as of right now, I'm not able to be of any real help. This, so far,
doesn't seem to match up with any of the sorts of scenarios that I would
expect to cause you this type of problem.

 

[Jill Zoeller [MSFT]]

Steve, would you mind contacting me via email? We'd like you to run a tool
that generates a log file for us, and this is easier to do over email.
Please remove "online" from my address.

Thanks!