XP Pro System Restore

[Guest]

Hi. I've reformated and re-installed about 6 times this last week. I've been
trying to install older applications, and in the process, finding out witch
ones just dont work with XP. I always get to a point (always around the same
place*) and the windows start up really bogs down (ex: welcome window takes
10x longer to complete and the opening of the main user window suspends for
about 2 minutes and then finaly gives me a taskbar and desktop) This in
itself I find very disheartning.

To put a cherry on top, the system restore works great until I install
non-hardware applications, and then I can no longer restore the system.

***My question is this: where are the restore files hidden so that I may
copy them to a different drive and protect them?
***Question 2 isoes anyone know why my system bogs down after a while???

 

[Gerry Cornell]

System Restore
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srfail.html

Please check Event Viewer for Warning / Error Reports in the System and
Application logs for when the error occurs and post copies.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Administrative Tools, and
Event Viewer. When researching the meaning of the error, information
regarding Event ID, Source and Description are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&sd=tech

Part of the Description of the error will include a link, which you should
double click for further information. You can copy using copy and paste.
Often the link will, however, say there is no further information.
http://go.microsoft.com/fw.link/events.asp
(Please note the hyperlink above is for illustration purposes only)

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double click
on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a button
resembling two pages. Double click the button and close Event Viewer. Now
start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of the message. This
will paste the info from the Event Viewer Error Report complete with links
into the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from Event
Viewer.

How to Gain Access to the System Volume Information Folder
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309531


--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Bert Kinney]

Hi,

What do you me by "non-hardware applications"? Exactly what apps are you
referring to?

System Restore store the information it collects in restore points located
in the System Volume Information folder located on each drive/partition
Windows sees.

From http://bertk.mvps.org/
Can I permanently save or backup a restore point for later use?

By designed and under normal conditions System Restore will automatically
create a new restore point every 24 hours.

When the allotted disk space is reached, the oldest restore point will be
purged on a first in first out (FIFO) basis. Otherwise, restore points over
90 days are purged automatically by default.

Each one of these restore points are chained (or linked) together with
previous restore points. When a restore point is chosen, all restore point
created prior to that restore point are also required to complete the
restoration.

While all of this is going on, in real time, a log is being created or
updated that tracks the consistency between the files System Restore is
monitoring, and the files that are actually backed up. If an inconsistency
is found between the log file and the files located in the System Volume
Information folder, restore point corruption can occur. In turn this causes
the chain to become broken and any prior restore points to become useless,
thus causing System Restore to fail at a restore. At this point all restore
points would have to be purged to remove the corruption. So you can see,
backing up and restoring restore points would cause an inconsistency in the
restore log thus causing corruption and the loss of all restore points.

Note: Any changes made within the System Volume Information folder (where
System Restore stores restore information) will almost certainly cause the
same corruption.