Vista system restore "hog"

[Robert]

Hi all, I have Vista Prem. on my new Dell Inspron 518 and a 650GB hard
drive. Dell ships with a partition for Recovery, installed on the drive.

I was just wondering as I checked the space used for System Restore; it
showed 82GB used space with 87GB reserved space for System Restore. I read
all about System Restore for Vista and this seems right, percentage wise,
for the size of the drive I have. Just seems like a lot of space? But what I
want to know is, if System Restore is counting the Recovery partition? My
instinct tells me its not? But I would like some input from any one who
really knows? Thank you. .....Rob

 

[Richie Hardwick]

Hi all, I have Vista Prem. on my new Dell Inspron 518 and a 650GB hard
drive. Dell ships with a partition for Recovery, installed on the drive.

I was just wondering as I checked the space used for System Restore; it
showed 82GB used space with 87GB reserved space for System Restore. I read
all about System Restore for Vista and this seems right, percentage wise,
for the size of the drive I have. Just seems like a lot of space? But what I
want to know is, if System Restore is counting the Recovery partition? My
instinct tells me its not? But I would like some input from any one who
really knows? Thank you. .....Rob

It's not.

If you would like to reduce the reserved size...

http://www.petri.co.il/change_amount_of_disk_space_used_by_system_restore_in_vista.htm

Richie Hardwick

 

[John Barnett MVP]

System restore creates restore points on the 'individual' disks it monitors,
not all on the same disk. You can however reduce the default space it takes
up. See this link from my website:
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/decrease_storage_space-allocated_to_system_restore.htm

If your system is running fine, you could also turn off system restore to
remove the restore points and then turn in on again and create a new restore
point. This will get rid of some of the older restore points. But remember
the restore point is equal to the amount of data on your hard drive, so if
you have 20GB of data (including windows, software applications, etc) your
restore points are going to also be 20GB, consequently the allocated space
is soon taken up again. As new system restore points are made older ones get
deleted depending upon how much allocated space is left on your hard drive.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Apologies Richie my post was meant for Robert. I had your reply highlighted
when I clicked the 'reply' button.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[Richie Hardwick]

Apologies Richie my post was meant for Robert. I had your reply highlighted
when I clicked the 'reply' button.

Don't let it happen again, y'hear!? ;-)

Richie Hardwick

 

[Robert]

Thanks John..... I remember reading that a while ago when I wasn't concerned
about all the space the restore is using. I just wish they had a nice slider
like in Windows XP to change the amount of space to use in system restore.
But that's ok, I will just use the Command Prompt if I ever feel the need
to. Again Thanks! ....Rob

 

[dgmacmi]

Hi all, I have Vista Prem. on my new Dell Inspron 518 and a 650GB hard
drive. Dell ships with a partition for Recovery, installed on the drive.

I was just wondering as I checked the space used for System Restore;
it showed 82GB used space with 87GB reserved space for System Restore. I
read all about System Restore for Vista and this seems right, percentage
wise, for the size of the drive I have. Just seems like a lot of space?
But what I want to know is, if System Restore is counting the Recovery
partition? My instinct tells me its not? But I would like some input
from any one who really knows? Thank you. .....Rob

Suggest you not touch the Dell Recovery partition. The sole purpose of that
partition is to restore your computer to the Dell shipped configuration.

After you run Disk Cleanup, if you select the second tab in the results
window, you will have an option to delete all but the last restore point.

Don

 

[JerryM]

Hi, Robert,

Vista no longer has the slider bar, but you can tell it what size you want
by using the following:

right click CMD.EXE and choose Run as Administrator, then type VSSADMIN LIST
SHADOWSTORAGE and hit enter to see how much space the restore points are
using,
then type VSSADMIN RESIZE SHADOWSTORAGE /FOR=C: /ON=C: /MAXSIZE=2GB and hit
Enter. ( you can vary from 2GB up to 10GB)
hit enter and you should see Shadowstorage has been successfully resized..

Good luck,
Jerry