Is it good practice to create a system restore point before installing (or uninstalling) software?

This tutorial describes how to manually create a system restore point in Windows 11.

• In your experience, is it worthwhile to manually create a system restore point before installing software or apps?
• Or are system restore points created automatically before software is installed or Windows updates are applied? I'm confused. It seems from this other tutorial that System Restore is "on" by default. But it's unclear to me what System Restore being "on" actually means.

I realize that System Restore is NOT a substitute for creating backups. But I wonder if System Restore has any usefulness -- in reading these forums, I see a lot of references to System Restore failing users.

I have never used System Restore in Windows 10 or 11. I tried it in Windows 7 and it was not reliable .

Why not create system restore points if it will not fail to help you resolve system problem, i create one just to have more bullets for my recovery operation.

@classic35mm

Pick one of these, and use it.
Your plan is a good one. Make a backup before any major changes.







The trick is to keep the "used space" on your Windows partition.... small (like 60GB or less).
Then your backups and restores will be very fast.

Install large games or large programs on a storage drive, instead of on the Windows partition.

Some years ago, SR was sketchy at best. It failed me way more than once, both on my system but mostly on systems belonging to others. Fast forward to today, SR may be better now or it may not be, I can't tell you because I do not use it myself. However, a lot of folks here do and do not seem to have issues with it. I guess I got burned too many times to ever have faith in it again.
My strategy is to image my system once a week so if I get into trouble, I'm never more than 6-7 days out of date. My personal files are on a separate drive so my system images are small. It takes me 5 minutes. Also, if I'm making registry changes I always manually backup any registry key before I add/change/delete any of its subkeys.

To answer your question about the system making restore points, yes the system does make some restore points automatically. An automatic restore point is made before a Windows update is installed, an unsigned driver is installed, or a program is installed from an MSI. (An automatic restore point is not made when installed using an EXE) A restore point is also made every seven days if no other automatic restore point has been otherwise made.

Like others said, you can make manual restore points if it will make you feel better. If you ever have a need to use one, if it works for you, great. .But if it doesn't, be prepared with a plan B. Decide on a imaging schedule that works for you and do it.

Although I do create system restore points weekly, I have seldom had to use them. When I have resorted to a system restore point, I have always done so in Safe Mode, which maximizes the chances that the restore will be successful. SR is very prone to failure in Normal Boot mode because there is too much running.

I also create full system images weekly, alternating between the paid versions of Macrium Reflect Home and Easeus Todo Backup Home. As has already been mentioned, I would not trust SR to always work.

For registry backups, I really like the Tweaking.com "Registry Backup" program. Tweaking was taken over last year. Their Forums are not functional. The former list of utilities has disappeared, except for the Windows Repair program. I run the Registry Backup utility every week or when I am going to make registry changes, which is seldom. You can still download it here: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/registry-backup/

It runs perfectly on Windows 11 Pro. It is fast and thorough and FREE. I highly recommend it. I believe in backup redundancies. I like having my registry all backed up by itself, just in case . . .

Have a great day.

Regards,
Phil

As Ghot suggest, use a good backup software.
I use Macrium with daily backups.
I also use Revo Uninstaller Pro for software removal as it can make a registry backup before an uninstall.
If i am removing some biggish software (Office or Acrobat) i usually take a Macrium image just in cast it goes wrong.
My documents and email are on a separate drive (with daily backups) so if i revert to a different "C" drive backup nothing is lost.

This is a perennial discussion.

One needs to understand how a system restore works and how an image restore works.

Think back to VCR days. You could put a new tape in or rewind an existing tape.

An image restore is like putting in a tape that is a copy of current state at a certain date.
If you do an image restore, you get a faithful copy of the C drive at time backup was made.
However, any data on C drive made after the backup get lost - that is why I store data on a separate drive.

A system restore was like rewinding a tape on a vcr to a previous position. It only really deals with the registry settings. If you installed programs since the restore was made you lose them BUT you do not lose the data on the C drive. A system restore is not a backup of whole pc but only some elements of the pc.

Flash back in time to much slower pcs and drives, where an image backup could take 30 minutes or more, a system restore was useful as quicker if you got issues, especially if messing with registry or installing new apps. The problem is a system restore was not always reliable and would often "undo" and not be updated.

However nowadays an image restore is much faster (particularly if using SSDs), and is far more reliable (works every time). Some tools e.g. Macrium Reflect Home (paid), Hasleo Backup Suite (Free), Casper Backup (Paid) even have a Rapid Delta Restore function (restore by change differences) which is really fast - often less than 1 minute.

Frankly, system restore points have had their day and (imo) not even worth bothering with. I turn them off 100% with the CAVEAT that data is stored on a separate drive.

I havent had a system restore work in quite awhile. Even on clean installs of windows sometimes it just doesn't work and I am honestly not sure why.

So I personally have not bothered with it. Windows seems to have it disabled by default now anyway on a new install.

Thanks to a great programmer and also a great Moderator (thanks Brink) I have a little script that when run will force a new System Restore point to be created.
On a new install, if SR is not turned ON, I will turn it on. Then I install that little script in my "Startup" folder, so it runs ever time I boot up my PC.
My PC boots up in about ten seconds, so the SR script really doesn't slow it down, much.
And if in my fumbling around, I screw up my desktop or something, a quick System Restore will fix it. OH, I also keep a shortcut to System Restore on my Desktop, with Shortcuts to my other valuable softwares. OH, by the way, that shortcut is: C:\Windows\System32\rstrui.exe
And, the script I'm using to create a new SR restore point is:
' Created by: Shawn Brink
' Ten Forums - Windows 10 Help and Support Forum
' Tutorial: Create System Restore Point shortcut in Windows 10


Function GetOS
Set objWMI = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & ".\root\cimv2")
Set colOS = objWMI.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem")
For Each objOS in colOS
If instr(objOS.Caption, "Windows 11") Then
GetOS = "Windows 11"
End If
Next
End Function

If GetOS = "Windows 11" Then
If WScript.Arguments.length =0 Then
Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
objShell.ShellExecute "wscript.exe", Chr(34) & WScript.ScriptFullName & Chr(34) & " Run", , "runas", 1
Else
const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
strComputer = "."
Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")
strKeyPath = "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore"
strValueName = "SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency"
oReg.SetDWORDValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,strKeyPath,strValueName,0
CreateSRP
End If
End If


Sub CreateSRP

GetObject("winmgmts:\\.\root\default:Systemrestore").CreateRestorePoint "Instant Restore Point", 0, 100

End Sub

andrew129260 said:

I havent had a system restore work in quite awhile. Even on clean installs of windows sometimes it just doesn't work and I am honestly not sure why.

So I personally have not bothered with it. Windows seems to have it disabled by default now anyway on a new install.

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Well another thing that happens or should say used to happen all the time to me. I dont do restore points anymore cause one reason is for me everytime Windows updated it would wipe my restore points. I also used too use up until about a year ago automated task of creating a restore point per day or per week but same thing happened to them, after an update my tasks were wiped out as well. So now I manually create a weekly image using EaseUs Todo Pro Backup. I dont understand why windows does that crap to itself. Why even have system restore baked in. Remove the code in my opinion.

Josey Wales said:

I have never used System Restore in Windows 10 or 11. I tried it in Windows 7 and it was not reliable .

Click to expand...

I agree so I disable SR on all PCs and rely on Macrium Reflect backups which have never failed me.

imanlien2020 said:

I dont do restore points anymore cause one reason is for me everytime Windows updated it would wipe my restore points

Click to expand...

Interesting, that never has happened for me. There would be tons of restore points, but none of them would ever work. And when I noticed on clean installs it was turned off by default, I figured it was being deprecated at some point.

You could always try this:


I had done that as well at one point to see if the restore points created just were not enough.