Usefulness of System Restore?

[Bob]

I am thinking of buying Win XP and am comparing the Home Edition and the
Professional Edition. It seems the main feature in the Professional Ed.
that I might need would be the Restore feature, including the driver
rollback and the start using most recent good start settings. My
questions are 3.

1. Do these restore features work well in Professional?

2. Are they available in the Home Edition as well?

3. Do the users in this newsgroup really use these features often?

Thank you very much.

 

[John Dingley]

From my own experience:

1. Fairly
2. Yes
3. No one can really answer this - but some will have never used it, others
may use it very often. I suspect it depends on how problematic a particular
PC is.

My only other comment is when I have had to use it, it has not worked
particularly well but on the other hand it has always restored to something
that works even though it may not be the EXACT replica of the system when
the restore was taken,

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

I'd like to see a list of files it stored- Specifics
not generalities.Somewhere in KB/Google it must be.

|I am thinking of buying Win XP and am comparing the Home Edition and the
|Professional Edition. It seems the main feature in the Professional Ed.
|that I might need would be the Restore feature, including the driver
|rollback and the start using most recent good start settings. My
|questions are 3.
|
|1. Do these restore features work well in Professional?
|
|2. Are they available in the Home Edition as well?
|
|3. Do the users in this newsgroup really use these features often?
|
|Thank you very much.


Any advice given is my attempt to show appreciation for all
the excellent help I've received here but I'm no MVP so it
may only apply NUGS. Personal attacks, nitpicking & criticism
of anything but content will NOT be responded to. Those
posters should spend their time taking the test @
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/ocdtrt1.htm

 

[davetest]

I'd like to see a list of files it stored- Specifics
not generalities.Somewhere in KB/Google it must be.

Yes I'd like to see that to.
It's my understanding that when a restore point is set a
registry backup is made. Then any subsequent changes made to
executable files are associated with the restore point.
There are some miscellaneous files such as INI, still used in
some apps. I think these are included, but I'm not sure.

Dave

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

As I recall, if u force create a restore point b4 an
event it will bring u back to there.

On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 07:17:38 +0100, "John Dingley"

|My only other comment is when I have had to use it, it has not worked
|particularly well but on the other hand it has always restored to something
|that works even though it may not be the EXACT replica of the system when
|the restore was taken,


Any advice given is my attempt to show appreciation for all
the excellent help I've received here but I'm no MVP so it
may only apply NUGS. Personal attacks, nitpicking & criticism
of anything but content will NOT be responded to. Those
posters should spend their time taking the test @
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/ocdtrt1.htm

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

You can see a list of the files/folders that SR monitors/doesn't monitor in the %systemroot%\system32\restore\filelist.xml file. In conjunction with SR I also use ERunt - which can backup/restore the Registry. It can restore the Registry in MS-DOS as well:

http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

Strange that filelist.xml doesnt include boot.ini !!

As I recall, u cant run Restore in DOS. guess that's
why u run ERunt too.

Comments/suggestions/corrections appreciated.
Thanks- bye- Larry


On Wed, 8 Oct 2003 08:24:50 +0100, "Will Denny"

|Hi
|
|You can see a list of the files/folders that SR monitors/doesn't monitor in the %systemroot%\system32\restore\filelist.xml file. In conjunction with SR I also use ERunt - which can backup/restore the Registry. It can restore the Registry in MS-DOS as well:
|
|http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/


Any advice given is my attempt to show appreciation for all
the excellent help I've received here but I'm no MVP so it
may only apply NUGS. Personal attacks, nitpicking & criticism
of anything but content will NOT be responded to. Those
posters should spend their time taking the test @
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/ocdtrt1.htm

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

On Wed, 08 Oct 2003 07:46:12 GMT, "Larry(LJL269)"

|Strange that filelist.xml doesnt include boot.ini !!

Yea but that page is editable- just add it in, I guess

Any advice given is my attempt to show appreciation for all
the excellent help I've received here but I'm no MVP so it
may only apply NUGS. Personal attacks, nitpicking & criticism
of anything but content will NOT be responded to. Those
posters should spend their time taking the test @
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/ocdtrt1.htm

 

[John Dingley]

That is not true. If you install a program and then do a restore to the
point just before that installation, files still exist on your PC that were
placed there by that installation. So it is not an exact.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

I am thinking of buying Win XP and am comparing the Home Edition and
the Professional Edition. It seems the main feature in the
Professional Ed. that I might need would be the Restore feature,
including the driver rollback and the start using most recent good
start settings. My questions are 3.

1. Do these restore features work well in Professional?

They work, but I wouldn't say 'well'. SR has a nasty habit of thinking
it doesn't have enough disk space (wrongly!) and turning itself off. It
also has a nasty habit of (sometimes) having corrupt restore points,
which you only discover when you need to use them. It also doesn't do
what many people think it does (i.e. it doesn't restore =everything=).

2. Are they available in the Home Edition as well?

Yes. Nothing you have quoted requires you to by XP pro.

3. Do the users in this newsgroup really use these features often?

Driver rollback, yes (I play too much). SR - once or twice (it's the
easiest way to un-install some MS 'upgrades' which are otherwise not
un-installable).

 

[Maureen Goldman]

I am thinking of buying Win XP and am comparing the Home Edition and the
Professional Edition. It seems the main feature in the Professional Ed.
that I might need would be the Restore feature, including the driver
rollback and the start using most recent good start settings. My
questions are 3.

1. Do these restore features work well in Professional?

2. Are they available in the Home Edition as well?

3. Do the users in this newsgroup really use these features often?

When Restore works, it works fine. Sure I use it, the same as I
sometimes used scanreg with Win98 when things went south. And as with
Win98, I have a secondary backup (freeware erunt.zip, already
recommended).

 

[R. McCarty]

System Restore is a "Basic" recovery method, first used in
Windows ME. Designed primarily as a "Back-Out" tool.
When users install drivers or applications that negatively
impact their install, SR can be used to go to a previous
state (Calendar). So, it functions more like a "That didn't
work, so let's reset the system state back a day or so"

The problem with System Restore is that it is a non-verifiable
tool. Restore points may be set, but the user has no way to
confirm they are valid. I don't believe MS ever considered
SR for the use many people depend on. SR also depends
on the complete restore point chain to move backwards. If
you want to go back 6 days and the 4th day back (point) is
corrupted, then you can only move back 3-days. Most users
that "trust" SR, will configure it to only monitor a small number
of days to increase it's dependability.

First of all, it doesn't protect user's documents, only system
components. System Restore also takes up a great deal of
disk space. By default it will allocate 10%+ of your hard drive
space for restore points. It also will retain any virus or Trojan
infections that are present when the restore point is created.
(By design Windows XP prevents virus scanners from being
able to scan within the "System Volume Information" folders.)

Basically it comes down to a confidence level. When users
create system images with Ghost/Drive Image and use verify
on the image you can be 99% confident you are protected
in the event of a catastrophic failure. (Images are only good
if they are stored OFF the PC that is being imaged -Tape CD-R,
DVD-R, etc). Nothing can replace a true Backup (Image)
of a PC. Most users that create Images of their systems, will
most likely disable System Restore.

 

[Gregg Cattanach]

System Restore is a "Basic" recovery method, first used in
Windows ME. Designed primarily as a "Back-Out" tool.
When users install drivers or applications that negatively
impact their install, SR can be used to go to a previous
state (Calendar). So, it functions more like a "That didn't
work, so let's reset the system state back a day or so"

The problem with System Restore is that it is a non-verifiable
tool. Restore points may be set, but the user has no way to
confirm they are valid. I don't believe MS ever considered
SR for the use many people depend on. SR also depends
on the complete restore point chain to move backwards. If

The three times I've had to use it it really has been a godsend. The main
thing it DOES do well is roll back the registry so if you've hosed it up
with some bad installation, driver or hack attempt, you can get it back. It
clearly isn't a perfect tool and you should have off disc backups (I do a
tape every 3 days), and or disc imaging software but having restore points
can help bring back the registry and any system files that might have gone
haywire. SR is much less invasive and time consuming than doing a complete
system restore from tape, DVD or disk image, (minutes instead of hours). I
definitely would leave it enabled, but reduce the amount of disk space
allocated so you just have maybe 6 to 10 restore points, not the 60 days
worth the default settings can end up saving. 9 times out of 10 you'll know
you need it pretty quickly and you'll be going back to the last one made,
anyway.

Gregg C.

 

[R. McCarty]

Good Points - For the situations you describe, SR is a
quick, relatively easy fix.

 

[mrtee]

But the registry entries for the program are gone and normally it then will not run.

Be advised that SR does not monitor "My Documents" and other personal files. See article "Monitored File Extensions http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/enus/sr/sr/about_system_restore.asp" HTH.

--
Just my ¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| That is not true. If you install a program and then do a restore to the
| point just before that installation, files still exist on your PC that were
| placed there by that installation. So it is not an exact.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I am thinking of buying Win XP and am comparing the Home Edition and the
Professional Edition. It seems the main feature in the Professional Ed.
that I might need would be the Restore feature, including the driver
rollback and the start using most recent good start settings. My
questions are 3.

1. Do these restore features work well in Professional?

Yes. System Restore proper allows you to go back, up to a few days, to
unwind the system to the exact state it was - for what it does, see
http://microsoft.com/technet/itcommunity/Newsgroups/FAQSRWXP.asp
Don't regard it though as being a substitute for Backup, or as being a
long term matter

2. Are they available in the Home Edition as well?

Yes. The thing that is not is the 'Automatic System restore' side of
Backup - but as I don't use the NTBackup anyway, that would not be an
incentive to go to Pro rather than Home. For the extras in Pro, a good
source is
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp
to which add that in a network Pro will support 10 connections; Home
only five

3. Do the users in this newsgroup really use these features often?

I use System Restore fairly often; have used driver rollback a couple of
times