Windows XP System Restore/Disk Cleanup question

K

Ken Springer

When you do a Disk Cleanup, there is an advanced option to remove all
but the latest System Restore point.

Question:

If you select the option to remove all but the latest System Restore
point, does Disk Cleanup remove all the files associated with the
removed System Restore points, or are those files associated with the
removed points left behind to take up space on the hard drive?


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 5.0
Thunderbird 5.0
LibreOffice 3.3.3
 
S

SC Tom

Ken Springer said:
When you do a Disk Cleanup, there is an advanced option to remove all but
the latest System Restore point.

Question:

If you select the option to remove all but the latest System Restore
point, does Disk Cleanup remove all the files associated with the removed
System Restore points, or are those files associated with the removed
points left behind to take up space on the hard drive?


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 5.0
Thunderbird 5.0
LibreOffice 3.3.3

If you remove the Restore Point, you remove all the files associated with
it.

A slightly better option is to use something like CCleaner to remove SOME of
the RP's. Unless you do almost daily backups or disk images, it's nice to
have the last few RP's to fall back on. Of course that's just my opinion;
other's may have different ones, and that's OK.
 
K

Ken Springer

If you remove the Restore Point, you remove all the files associated
with it.

That is what I wanted to know, thanks, Tom.
A slightly better option is to use something like CCleaner to remove
SOME of the RP's. Unless you do almost daily backups or disk images,
it's nice to have the last few RP's to fall back on. Of course that's
just my opinion; other's may have different ones, and that's OK.

Over a period of time, always end up with some hardware laying around
that someone disposed of, but the hardware is still useful and too good
to recycle.

I'll take the parts and pieces and put together a system, 100% legal,
then give to a local social agency who in turn gives it to someone that
needs a computer but for whatever reason doesn't have one. I always
include a variety of free and/or Open Source software so the system is
useable out of the back of my car without any money needed to buy software.

Ccleaner is one of those programs I install.

I also try to make it as close to being brand new as possible, and once
everything is up and running, I only need the last restore point. And I
give them a disk image, software, and written instructions on how to use
that CD to put the computer back to the way it was when the agency gave
it to them.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 5.0
Thunderbird 5.0
LibreOffice 3.3.3
 
P

Paul

Ken said:
That is what I wanted to know, thanks, Tom.

You also have the option of adjusting the percentage of the disk,
used for restore points. That is easier than "cleaning" them all
the time.

I dialed down the amount of storage on C: for System Restore,
to around 3GB, and turned off System Restore on all other
partitions. And 3GB still holds a significant number of
restore points. You could probably drop it a bit lower still,
without losing too much in the process.

For my usage pattern, restore points are only really useful, if
they're not too old. I'd have a hard time, making the decision to
use a three month old restore point. So much could go wrong, if
I did that. If the restore point is only two days old, I don't
even think about it. To me, they have declining value, when they
get too old. And when you need them most (cleanup after malware
attack), they're generally all ruined by the malware anyway, so
they're virtually useless in that situation.

Paul
 
K

Ken Springer

You also have the option of adjusting the percentage of the disk,
used for restore points. That is easier than "cleaning" them all
the time.

Since the computer won't be for me to use, I prefer to leave the disk
space as it would be if it was new out-of-the-box.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 5.0
Thunderbird 5.0
LibreOffice 3.3.3
 
S

SC Tom

Paul said:
You also have the option of adjusting the percentage of the disk,
used for restore points. That is easier than "cleaning" them all
the time.

I dialed down the amount of storage on C: for System Restore,
to around 3GB, and turned off System Restore on all other
partitions. And 3GB still holds a significant number of
restore points. You could probably drop it a bit lower still,
without losing too much in the process.

For my usage pattern, restore points are only really useful, if
they're not too old. I'd have a hard time, making the decision to
use a three month old restore point. So much could go wrong, if
I did that. If the restore point is only two days old, I don't
even think about it. To me, they have declining value, when they
get too old. And when you need them most (cleanup after malware
attack), they're generally all ruined by the malware anyway, so
they're virtually useless in that situation.

Paul

Isn't there a command line method of adjusting the size in XP, or is that
just in Vista and Win7 (using vssadmin)? I thought XP had it, too, but I
can't find it anywhere in my notes. (But then, sometimes I'm lucky just to
find my notes LOL!) Setting it through System Props gets me down to 1% of my
C: drive, and that's still 5.9GB.
 
P

Paul

Bill said:
What's funny is that I had thought in the past, the average was more like
200 MB per restore point, but perhaps some senioritis is setting in; either
that, or I was doing something more intensive back then. :) But even
at 200 MB you'd have about 2 weeks worth, which seems ample.

My average is 75MB each, so I could get about 40 in a 3GB space.

If I look in C:\WINDOWS\system32\config for registry files...

SOFTWARE 18,874,368 bytes
SYSTEM 11,796,480 bytes

so there are probably lots of copies of those being archived. Some
people have larger files than that for a registry.

The largest restore point I've casually examined, was 1GB, and that's
because a file changed outside the "My Documents" structure. And it
got captured. Changes inside "My Documents", aren't captured.

Paul
 
K

Ken Springer

Isn't there a command line method of adjusting the size in XP, or is
that just in Vista and Win7 (using vssadmin)? I thought XP had it, too,
but I can't find it anywhere in my notes. (But then, sometimes I'm lucky
just to find my notes LOL!) Setting it through System Props gets me down
to 1% of my C: drive, and that's still 5.9GB.

I remember reading there is a way to adjust it, but I don't remember if
it was a command line situation. But since the 'puter is going
elsewhere, I'm going to leave everything on the computer set to default.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 5.0
Thunderbird 5.0
LibreOffice 3.3.3
 

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