System Protection cannot be enabled

Hi, all!

I recently noticed that my System Protection is not working correctly since upgrading to Windows 11. I am on the Beta Insiders channel right now, but this hasn't worked since upgrading to Win 11. (I had hoped upgrading to the Beta channel would fix it.)

Description of the issue:

All of my disks claim in the System Protection utility that System Protection is disabled. Upon pressing "Configure" to enable it, the utility crashes (disappears from the screen, and the process stops running).

What I expect to happen:

I am taken to a screen to set the amount of disk space for

What I have tried:

- DISM and SFC (to ensure the filesystem is working appropriately)
- Checking for updates
- Enabling System Protection in Control Panel
- Enabling and configuring System Protection via PowerShell
- Enabling System Protection in Command Prompt from Advanced System Start/Recovery utility

None of it works. Is there a way to repair this utility specifically? (FYI: I am not currently experiencing any other issues with the Win 11 installation that I am aware of. Other Backup/Recovery tools like Folder History are working well.)

Try the suggestions here. Be sure to enable the services associated with system restore mentioned in that article.

Try to enable system restore by executing bellow command from Command Prompt that is open with administrative privileges.

I will give both suggestions a shot and report back. Thank you for trying to help!

Those are required for it to work, but note that system restore is not very reliable, it is considered deprecated.

8thHalfHour said:

All of my disks claim in the System Protection utility that System Protection is disabled. Upon pressing "Configure" to enable it, the utility crashes (disappears from the screen and the process stops running).

Click to expand...

TairikuOkami said:

....note that system restore is not very reliable, it is considered deprecated.

Click to expand...

I agree that system restore can be unreliable, but I don't think MS have officially deprecated it (yet). Anyway, it's available for me, even in 22621.

If none of these suggestions work you may have some file corruption going on.
From cmd as admin type sfc /scannow
If system file checker finds anything it can not repair, followup with dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

You can always do a repair install that should resolve the problem. Repair Install Windows 11 with an In-place Upgrade Tutorial

TairikuOkami said:

but note that system restore is not very reliable, it is considered deprecated.

Click to expand...

I know "Backup and Restore" has been depreciated, but "System Restore" has not - Use System Restore on Windows 11 Tutorial

UPDATES​

I am unable to update the OP for some reason, so here are the results of my first attempts to fix this from your suggestions. The attempts are divided by usernames.

@glasskuter​

glasskuter said:

Try the suggestions here. Be sure to enable the services associated with system restore mentioned in that article.

System Restore disabled or greyed out? Turn On System Restore in Windows 11/10

If System Restore has been disabled, is or greyed out or has been turned off on your Windows computer, then you must enable system protection on the drive.

www.thewindowsclub.com

Click to expand...

#1 - I tried the PowerShell command listed, as I had done before, with the following same result. Maybe it will add more meaning to someone stopping by, though, so I'll include it here.:



When investigating the error message, I only found answers related to programming that I was unable to apply to what could be wrong with System Protection. If anyone knows what this could mean, please chime in.

#2 - I checked in on the services the article mentions: Volume Shadow Copy, Task Scheduler, and Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider Service are all running. I restarted them just to make sure (though, when I restart my computer, this should be occurring then as well):

glasskuter said:

If none of these suggestions work you may have some file corruption going on.
From cmd as admin type sfc /scannow
If system file checker finds anything it can not repair, followup with dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

You can always do a repair install that should resolve the problem. Repair Install Windows 11 with an In-place Upgrade Tutorial

Click to expand...

I mentioned that I had done this in my OP. I regularly run the process explained here when encountering weirdness like this:

Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files

I typically run DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth, and when complete, sfc /scannow. No issues are discovered, but I appreciate the idea.

@FreeBooter​

FreeBooter said:

Try to enable system restore by executing bellow command from Command Prompt that is open with administrative privileges.

Code:

Reg.exe delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\SystemRestore" /v "DisableSR" /f

Click to expand...

Result:

@TairikuOkami​

TairikuOkami said:

Those are required for it to work, but note that system restore is not very reliable, it is considered deprecated.

Code:

reg delete "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\SystemRestore" /v "DisableSR" /f
reg delete "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\SystemRestore" /v "DisableConfig" /f
reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients" /v "{09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513}" /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "1" /f
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\SystemRestore\SR" /Enable
vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=25GB
sc config wbengine start= demand
sc config swprv start= demand
sc config vds start= demand
sc config VSS start= demand

Click to expand...

I tried these and I successfully enabled System Protection on Drive C. However, if I try to reconfigure from the SR tool, it crashes, as before. Also, SP is still not enabled on D:\, G:\, or X:\ drives, and selecting "Configure", crashed the tool as before. Additionally, I am unsure how to manage this or what it means for my system in general that this is not working.

At any rate, here are two screenshots to show what happens (I wasn't able to upload screen captures):

#1 - Targeting the C:\ drive your commands enabled:

a. Select the drive. Press "Configure".



b. The little processing disc spins. Then the whole window disappears, without any error or notification.



FYI: The exact same thing happens when selecting *any* of the discs.

A few questions:

1. Which of the commands you gave me enabled SR on my C:\ drive? (I'd like to enabled it on the others, as well.)
2. Do you have any thoughts on what is causing the interface to crash?

---

Thank you, all of you. Please review my results and get back to me when possible. I feel like we are getting closer!

Bree said:

I agree that system restore can be unreliable, but I don't think MS have officially deprecated it (yet).[/ATTACH]

Click to expand...

Interestingly when W10 first came out, MS set the default to "system restore off" unofficially signalling intent that it was not a recommended feature any more but never went as far as officially making it a deprecated feature. After a lot of Insider feedback, they reverted to default being on.

In the end, I found it too unreliable and gave up using it years ago, and use image backups instead. However, if one goes down that route, users need to understand the difference i.e. a system restore is not a full image backup, and if you do a system restore, it does not delete user data made since the last restore point.

With image backups, you can inadvertently end up deleting data made since last image backup. I get round this by the simple expediency of storing data on a different drive not included in my image backups. I, of course, back that up separately.

With Macrium Reflect Home's Rapid Delta Restore and incremental backups, I emulate pretty much what system restore does much more reliably and much faster as well.

To be fair, without RDR (not in Macrium Reflect Free, or any of its competitors), using image backups may be rather slower than System Restore, as you have to restore whole drive but is reliable - so time/benefit trade-off. In the end, (imo) reliability trumps time.

Of course, one can use system restore first, and if ok, great. Otherwise if it craps out, then do an image restore instead.
Only minor issue is (I think) the image backups are larger as you backup the restore points as well - I have not checked this for a long time though so could be wrong on this point.

cereberus said:

In the end, I found it too unreliable and gave up using it years ago, and use image backups instead. However, if one goes down that route, users need to understand the difference i.e. a system restore is not a full image backup, and if you do a system restore, it does not delete user data made since the last restore point.

With image backups, you can inadvertently end up deleting data made since last image backup. I get round this by the simple expediency of storing data on a different drive not included in my image backups. I, of course, back that up separately.

Click to expand...

System Restore is not a backup. Period. Full or partial. It does not backup personal file and folders. What it does is takes a "snapshot" of the registry and system files to be restored (in the form of a Restore Point) in the event of a bad driver or app issue.

Anyone looking at it as a "backup program" really don't understand it. I use it all the time whenever I install a driver or software package, so that if something goes wrong I can restore the system back to where it was "before" the driver or app install.

The other confusion is people don't realize when a new OS or major update is released the old Restore Points are deleted. This is because they are no longer valid for the new OS.

The only "issue" with System Restore is people not understanding its purpose, and therefore using it in the wrong manner.

8thHalfHour said:

I typically runDISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Click to expand...

You have your sequence out of order. Dism is actually not a tool to be run on a regular basis, but as a followup if sfc /scannow finds corrupt files it can not fix. Then after dism. you can then run SFC /scannow again to make sure it's clean.

8thHalfHour said:

(I'd like to enabled it on the others, as well.)

Click to expand...

System restore points only contain specific system level files such as DLLs, registry files, drivers, etc. As these are almost always on the %SystemDrive% which by default is the C, including the other drives would be pointless.

cereberus said:

Interestingly when W10 first came out, MS set the default to "system restore off" unofficially signalling intent that it was not a recommended feature any more but never went as far as officially making it a deprecated feature. After a lot of Insider feedback, they reverted to default being on.

In the end, I found it too unreliable and gave up using it years ago....

Click to expand...

It seemed to be most unreliable only for particular builds. 1803, if I recall correctly, was almost 100% unreliable. Strangely, 21H1 (as both W10 and W11) seems completely reliable the few times I've tried it.....

cereberus said:

Only minor issue is (I think) the image backups are larger as you backup the restore points as well - I have not checked this for a long time though so could be wrong on this point.

Click to expand...

Macrium Reflect excludes all restore points from its system images, precisely for that reason.

Name:	RestorePoints
Type:	REG_SZ_MULTI
Value:	$AllVolumes$\System Volume Information\*{3808876B-C176-4e48-B7AE-04046E6CC752} /s

This entry is essential and ensures that the shadow copy diff area is excluded from images. Without this entry images may become unnecessarily large. Don't worry if the entry isn't there, it will be automatically created when the next image is run.

Click to expand...

Bree said:

It seemed to be most unreliable only for particular builds. 1803, if I recall correctly, was almost 100% unreliable. Strangely, 21H1 (as both W10 and W11) seems completely reliable the few times I've tried it.....

Macrium Reflect excludes all restore points from its system images, precisely for that reason.

How to exclude files from a Disk Image - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification on (non) backup of restore points by Macrium Reflect.

TBH I could have worked out Reflect does not backup restore points by following my own general advice i.e. do your own tests first LOL but hey we are all guilty of being a bit lazy now and then (at least I stated I was unsure).

Now I am pondering, purely as an intellectual exercise (and not seeking a reply - a rhetorical question really), how I could backup a restore point if I really wanted to.

I will someday try a full (forensic) backup rather than smart sector backup.

I am also wondering if backing up from WinPE would backup restore points as that does not use VSS.

Ones for testing in the future as I personally have no need to do these as I do not use restore points anyway LOL.

cereberus said:

Now I am pondering, purely as an intellectual exercise (and not seeking a reply - a rhetorical question really), how I could backup a restore point if I really wanted to.

Click to expand...

You pose a good question that's got me curious. From what I've heard in the past, and just read, you can't backup restore points. Someone tried it but is didn't seem to work (at least on 10, and presumably 11) as explain here: Can you Backup Restore points or Recover Corrupt Restore Points in Windows 10?

I've not tried it myself (don't feel like messing with permissions), but if you find differently, I'd love to know the answer of how?

Thanks.

Dru2 said:

You pose a good question that's got me curious. From what I've heard in the past, and just read, you can't backup restore points. Someone tried it but is didn't seem to work (at least on 10, and presumably 11) as explain here: Can you Backup Restore points or Recover Corrupt Restore Points in Windows 10?

I've not tried it myself (don't feel like messing with permissions), but if you find differently, I'd love to know the answer of how?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

I am guessing here if you do a full sector backup, it might do it.

cereberus said:

I am also wondering if backing up from WinPE would backup restore points as that does not use VSS.
Ones for testing in the future as I personally have no need to do these as I do not use restore points anyway LOL.

Click to expand...

I have no need to do any tests to find out, I routinely back up a PC using WinPE when I first receive it and before doing any work on it. I still have some of those images. Here's one, with its restore points saved in the image.