XP's System Restore Feature

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Mark Weitz

Windows IT Pro

InstantDoc ID #22945

A good tool that needs to be better

While testing a new WebCam with a beta copy of Windows XP, I realized that the WebCam's Windows 2000 driver wasn't working properly with the new OS. I reinstalled my old WebCam, but its Windows 98 driver, which—before I uninstalled it—had worked under XP, then refused to function. Reinstalling the driver didn't fix the problem, so I tried out XP's System Restore feature, which lets you easily restore OS and application files to a previous state. After I selected a restore point that the feature had automatically created the day before, I rebooted, and my old WebCam's driver worked fine.

Sys...

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I went away this weekend and turned off my computer. When I came back I couldn't get on the Internet or E-mail. Other computers in my household could still get on. I called my ISP and they said that the IP address was not being assigned by my computer. That I should restore to a later date. When I went to restore the only date available was the day before. I wanted to restore back to Friday when I knew it was working. Now what can I do?

Anonymous User 12/1/2004 10:36:52 AM

I have a dell computer with XP home,its about 18 months old. I made a restore point on 6/11/04,started having problems 6/19/04.I tried to use sys restore for the first time.Only showed the 19th & 20th as restore points, would not goback to May, only showed July.Where are the restore points stored? I am the only user of mt computer and when I try to change home page it tells me to contact sys administrator. I am the sys adm but dont know how to tell the computer, it won't let me log on as adm, I did not use a password. Thanks for any help you give.

JACK KELLY 6/21/2004 11:01:50 AM

I have been using windows xp. Today when starting my computer which is part of a small network of 4 computers froze and I had to resart it. When restarted it does not show all the files and folders on the desktop like it did yesterday when I was using the computer.
If any can please help me.
Thanks

Ann 4/9/2004 9:59:19 AM

My xp system no longer works correctly concerning system restore. It makes restore points, but erases them in a couple of days. I have it set at 12%. can't fix it.

bob olinski 4/4/2004 11:12:03 AM

This is for shaun: This is because you probably didn't reboot the pc during this time, so the drivers couldn't be stored in the system restore ini file. a separate backup of your system is still a must, because when you can't boot up your machine in safe mode you still need some of backup.

Joffrey Vaassen 3/20/2004 7:18:49 AM

I have been using XP Pro since its realease here in Australia. I disagree on the issue of creating restore points every 24hrs. This is not correct. I have had to restore my system a couple of times due to errors and driver issues and I've look at the restore point table and find that there wasn't one created the day before. I've had to go back to at least a week to 2 weeks to locate a restore point created by the system.

However on this overall XP Pro has my thumbs up and a lot of techies here in AUS agree with this. It will be interesting to see the next server edition.

shaun2/13/2002 3:10:10 PM

I think the separation is justified. In my eyes System Restore is not a backup program, it is more intended to be a quick online recovery. If the system is seriously damaged a separate backup is needed anyhow. So considering this, I think they have done a good job.

Ingo Dettmar 12/11/2001 7:19:09 PM

System Restore = restore of system state, and it's o.k.
User documents changes = versioning, and it's app specific.
And there are backup(s), GHOSTing (or disk imaging).
GoBack do not allow you to use hibernating - as I know.
There are no snake oil or magic bullet as yet.
Best Regards

Krzysztof Nalecki 12/5/2001 12:37:29 AM

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