System Restore

Fact 1 - System Restore let me down many times.
Fact 2 - Image backups with Macrium Reflect have never let me down.
Fact 3 - There is no Fact 3.

cereberus said:

Fact 1 - System Restore let me down many times.
Fact 2 - Image backups with Macrium Reflect have never let me down.
Fact 3 - There is no Fact 3.

Click to expand...

Agreed

any idea why i am not able to see "snapshots" (versions) even its turned on?
thanks!

I always have it enabled. I only use it if I need to install something and I am not sure if it will help/work or not. If something goes wrong after installation or I think it did not change or do anything, I just restore my system back to get rid of whatever I just installed. Uninstalling still leaves some garbage in your system. System restore is way better. Same goes when you use the registry editor.
It is not meant to back-up your system or anything to that effect. It just records the latest state of your PC before doing anything to it.
If system restore fails, that's when Macrium comes into play.

lenovomi said:

any idea why i am not able to see "snapshots" (versions) even its turned on?
thanks!

Click to expand...

I may be misunderstanding your question, but here's my take on it: You're looking in the wrong place, and even if you look in the right place, you won't be able to examine a snapshot, the way you can mount a Macrium image and examine the folders and files on your computer at the time the image was made.

System Restore Points are stored in the System Volume Information folder, with long alphanumeric code names. The highlighted one was made this morning.



It can't be retrieved directly from this folder. You have to open System Properties > System Protection > System Restore, and there you will find all of the recent Restore Points listed for you, beginning with the latest one (for me, the one that was created this morning, and listed in the above screenshot). There is no direct File-Explorer-type display of the contents available.



SVI is ordinarily not accessible, but you can examine its contents by file-names (not the internal contents) by taking ownership of the SVI folder.

you won't be able to examine a snapshot,

Click to expand...

sure you can. I posted how a few days back, which everybody ignored.

I will make it easy .

copy and paste this into notpead and save it as somename.cmd for example showshadows.cmd

@ECHO OFF

if not exist c:\shadowcopies md c:\shadowcopies
for /f "tokens=2 delims=?" %%I in ('vssadmin list shadows ^| find "GLOBALROOT"') do (
mklink /d c:\shadowcopies\%%~nxI \\?%%I\
)

pause

Click to expand...

run showshadows.cmd

then look in c:\shadowcopies and you can see the links..



Click on any link to see the contents and copy out what you want.

you can delete c:\shadowcopies afterwards, it is just folder containing links and doesnt take up any space.

@SIW2:

Please elaborate. I never knew you could look inside a Restore Point. How?

To access shadowcopies in windows:

is explained in the post above yours. I have been doing it for years.

To access shadowcopies in winpe:

I dont bother faffing around including vssadmin in pe, so i use the lazy cheat and run nir sofers little shadowcopyview in pe.

you could use shadowcopyview in windows as well if you prefer it to the link method I posted. It doesnt need net framework or anything complicated, it is very neat little portable thing.

You're telling me that the HDV Shadow Copies 1 through 7 correspond to the restore point files here (from my SVI folder)?

I have no idea what yor numbers will be. run the cmd file and find out.

if you are curious, you can run at cmd prompt
vssadmin list shadows

the cmd file will create a link to each volume shown in the above list, you could do them one at a time with individual commands if you really want.

I just turned on my backup hard disk ( it is in caddy with a power switch)

now when i run the cmd file it also links to the shadows on the backup disk ( 8 and 9 )

@Wisewiz
I clicked on Create 2x and provided some name ... but when i click on System restore... it shows there are no restore points .. ;/

what does it show when you click the "Configure" Button

@SIW2

@SIW2

Thank you very much for giving me a valuable chunk of Windows knowledge I never had before. I have learned a lot today, and I'll use that new knowledge in the future, I'm sure.
{I've hit the appropriate points button.)

any idea here? on the issue ... ie i create restore points manually and they are not there ...

what happens after you click the create button ? do you get a message it was created successfully ?

lenovomi said:

any idea here? on the issue ... ie i create restore points manually and they are not there ...

Click to expand...

Try these methods, they should work for Win11 as well...

System restore unfortunately is often unavailable and when available often fails to complete or correct underlying problems.

Additional layers of protection are:

a) Regback



b) Backup images: (Acronis, Aoemi, EaseUS, Macrium, Paragon, etc.)

In post #34, above, it looks like someone turned ON System Restore and then failed to give it any space to store it's Restore Points. No space = no points stored! That's just plain wrong, in so many ways!

As a working PC tech, I've received many service calls, where the caller gave me their problem, and I knew from past experience that when I'd get there all I'd have to do is run System Restore to fix the problem. Then do a little cleanup, and be done.
And then when I'd finally get there, I'd find that some odlid had turned OFF System Restore. Arggg!
Then a ten minute fix, became hours of labor to restore Windows to proper operation.
And, the year old HD backup was virtually no help at all!

HD backups are only helpful if they are made on a regular (weekly or even Bi-Weekly) basis.
Experience is really the best teacher, and I've had 40+years of experience with building, maintaining and repairing PC's, and the OS's that go into them.

To insure that I always have a Fresh System Restore Point handy, if I need it, I run a little script (thank you Sean) in my Startup folder, that forces the system to create a new restore point, every time I reboot my PC.
Restore points only build up to the % I've designated and then drop off into the ol' Bit Bucket. lol
They cannot overrun the HD.

For those who feel about System Restore like I do, that it's an important hedge against disaster, here's that script to force a new restore point, in Windows 11.

' 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