Turning off System Restore

[swingman]

I'm considering turning off System Restore (SR), but I wonder if there are
consequences beyond the obvious? For instance, do Microsoft security
updates ever need to set a restore point, and if SR is off would these
updates fail? TIA...

 

[Rock]

I'm considering turning off System Restore (SR), but I wonder if there are
consequences beyond the obvious? For instance, do Microsoft security
updates ever need to set a restore point, and if SR is off would these
updates fail? TIA...

The system will run fine with it off.

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

I'm considering turning off System Restore (SR), but I wonder
if there are consequences beyond the obvious? For instance,
do Microsoft security updates ever need to set a restore point,
and if SR is off would these updates fail? TIA...

Hi,

Security updates tries to set a system restore point, but will just
continue to install even if they was not able to create one.

 

[Bobby]

This is a bad, bad idea.

System restore is sometimes the only way to recover from viruses and spyware
without a complete re-installation. Take my advice, leave it on.

Bobby

 

[kurttrail]

This is a bad, bad idea.

LOL! System Restore? It is a bad implementation of a good idea.

System restore is sometimes the only way to recover from viruses and
spyware without a complete re-installation.

Not if you keep a good image of your OS partition on removable media.

Take my advice, leave it
on.

System Restore is the last resort of the ignorant. Anyone with a good
image to fall back on is much better off relying on that than SR.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com/mscommunity
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei"

 

[Ken Blake]

In

I'm considering turning off System Restore (SR), but I wonder
if
there are consequences beyond the obvious? For instance, do
Microsoft security updates ever need to set a restore point,
and if
SR is off would these updates fail? TIA...

Just the obvious. Turning it off won't cause anything to fail, it
just takes away its safeguard.

But my advice is not to turn it off. System Restore has its
faults, sometimes gets corrupted, and has to be restarted.
Nevertheless it usually works just fine and is a valuable
safeguard. It's gotten me out of trouble, both on my own machine
and and those of others I support more than once.

By default, it uses much too much disk space on most people's
machines, and reducing it to no more than 2GB or even less, is a
good idea. But don't turn it off completely

 

[Bobby]

By default, it uses much too much disk space on most people's machines,

and reducing it to no more than 2GB or even less, is a good idea. But
don't turn it off completely

Err... 1Gb costs 30p in the UK. So what's the problem?

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Err... 1Gb costs 30p in the UK. So what's the problem?

It's not the waste of disk space that bothers me. It's that
reverting to a restore point more than a week or so old is likely
to cause other problems, getting other files out of synch with
the registry. So there's no need to use the 12% that Windows
defaults to. It just lets you save more old useless restore
points.

 

[Rock]

Err... 1Gb costs 30p in the UK. So what's the problem?

Also the more space allocated to it, the more restore points are created
and greater the chance of corruption.

 

[swingman]

Also the more space allocated to it, the more restore points are created
and greater the chance of corruption.

More restore points also means more disk fragmentation. For some reason SR
files are highly fragmented in my experience. By the way, how much space
does a restore point require? I currently have the space allocation set at
200 megs and I wonder how many restore points can fit.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

More restore points also means more disk fragmentation. For
some
reason SR files are highly fragmented in my experience.

I haven't noticed that, but even if so, it really doesn't matter
much, since you need to use them so infrequently.

By the way,
how much space does a restore point require?

It varies quite a bit depending on your system, and even from
restore point to restore point. That's because restore points are
not independent but build on previous restore points. The concept
is a little like that of an incremental backup.

I currently have the
space allocation set at 200 megs and I wonder how many restore
points
can fit.

Go to system restore and see how many dates are in black rather
than gray. That will tell you how many you presently have, and
that will be at least an approximate answer to your question.

 

[swingman]

In


I haven't noticed that, but even if so, it really doesn't matter much,
since you need to use them so infrequently.




It varies quite a bit depending on your system, and even from restore
point to restore point. That's because restore points are not independent
but build on previous restore points. The concept is a little like that of
an incremental backup.




Go to system restore and see how many dates are in black rather than gray.
That will tell you how many you presently have, and that will be at least
an approximate answer to your question.

Thanks!

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Thanks!

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi Swingman,

200mb's for System Restore is to low. Installing or uninstalling
applications even update could cause the entire data store to be
purged, and the loss of all restore points. And defeat it's purpose.

Here are some tips and keeping System Restore Healthy and adjusting
disk space.
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/healthy.html

 

[Rock]

More restore points also means more disk fragmentation. For some reason SR
files are highly fragmented in my experience. By the way, how much space
does a restore point require? I currently have the space allocation set at
200 megs and I wonder how many restore points can fit.

Fragmentation in SR points shouldn't be much of a problem.
Fragmentation is not much of a problem for most users any way until the
disk starts to fill up. 200MB won't hold much, but the size depends on
the system and will vary even on the same system. My system wouldn't
get more than 3 or 4 points in that amount of space.