System Restore

[AliceZ]

I went into System Restore on my desktop WinXPsp3 and notice that the "Select
a Restore Point" only shows the current month. I click on the the top (back)
arrow, but it doesn't go to previous months.
Does anyone know what might be wrong?

I recently downloaded sp3 to my desktop and notebook. The notebook "Seclect
a Restore Point" allows me to go back to previous months, but not the desktop.

Thank you
Alice

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

It's a question of hard drive space. The space allocated to restore points
is limited, and it's a FIFO buffer. SP3 was large enough to drop off the
earlier points.

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Mark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
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[AliceZ]

Thanks.
"SP3 was large enough to drop off the earlier points." I do not understand
this statement. If SP3 was 'large enough,' wouldn't it have retained the
earlier points, rather that dropping them off (deleting them)?

 

[Swifty]

"SP3 was large enough to drop off the earlier points." I do not understand
this statement. If SP3 was 'large enough,' wouldn't it have retained the
earlier points, rather that dropping them off (deleting them)?

Think of the backups as books being pushed onto one end of a bookshelf.
SP3 replaced a large number of files. So the restore point created
before SP3 was installed would contain a large number of files. So it is
a large book to push onto that end of the shelf, and in the process, a
number of smaller books fell off the other end. These were your older
restore points, which had been on the shelf for some time, but getting
nearer the end where they fall off.