Windows 7 System Restore

[bibblebub]

4 years ago , with my old XP laptop, I vowed never to use system restore again when I found all the restore points were empty when I most needed one, and I have managed fine without it since because it made me start taking backups seriously. But now I have a new W7 computer I decided to give it another go and so I am in the routine of creating a restore point first thing every morning since it only takes a few seconds.

I've used these restore points a few times so far without a problem until today. After the restore the PC booted up into a half-cocked mode - numerous programs including those in the control panel wouldn't load or would just become unresponsive once they had. I tried restarting several times including powering off, giving it a few minutes each time before trying to do anything, but without success. So I tried restoring from the point saved at the start of yesterday, and everything is now ok.

I have a couple of questions: was I simply unlucky with the restore point I created at the start of today or are restore points that turn out to be effectively duff quite common? Also the restart after the restore failed to load the desktop - there was just a blank screen - but Windows did recognise Ctrl-Alt-Del and a power off was needed to get it running properly; is this usual after a system restore?

[bibblebub]

i always manually connect to the internet only after rebooting has completed and don't have any trouble other than after the restores

[ChuckFickens]

↑ errrr, What The Funicular!!!

[ChuckFickens]

that wasn't at you, bibble.

[bibblebub]

that's ok chuck

[Old_Geezer]

Not that I need it that often but I've never had a problem with restore. Well save for those times when I went to restore only to find the PC wasn't automatically backing up regularly.

[ChuckFickens]

Sorry.... Was watching the end of Sherlock...

right, you do not need an internet connection to do a standard windows system restore, but as to why it didn't boot the first time after the restore.... No idea, but it obviously got stuck in the boot up somewhere, if it was a regular thing you can turn on boot logging or simply start in safe mode and watch to find out where the problem is.... but as it's only a one off I'd ignore it this time....

You did say task manager worked, so you should have been able to run explorer.exe manually from the new process button. and then just restarted the computer without powering off BTW.

However.... creating a restore point every day is hugely over the top, system restore only rolls back system changes, it does not care about your personal files, so unless you are making huge system changes everyday there really is no point in creating a restore point every day, it's NOT a backup.

(personally, I hate system restore BTW... fix the problem rather than ignore it and restore to an earlier date, because if you don't fix the problem it will very likely come back again)

[bibblebub]

Thanks chuck, it just didn't cross my mind to run explorer.exe even though I've done exactly that quite often in the past.

I've only started with the daily restore points in the pasty week and since everything's ok at the end of each day I thought that it might reduce the amount of program re-installing etc required if there were a problem. I keep my personal data completely separate and backed up - I don't even use the libraries for pictures etc. - so the restore points aren't because of that, it's all because I typically install several programs a day just to have a look at them and (most times) uninstall them immediately. Now and then one of those screws things up which is when system restore is the quickest (but not only) way to get things back to normal.

[bibblebub]

ah yes the "pasty week"... "pie month" is coming soon

[ChuckFickens]

If you want to install that many things just to look at them I'd suggest installing VMplayer and then setting up a virtual copy of windows7, get a clean install and then backup the Virtual machine. you can then install your "test" programs in the virtual environment and if it goes tits up you can just copy the entire virtual machine back over from your backup.

[bibblebub]

"A restore from a Restore Point is an absolute last resort"

No it isn't. According to Microsoft themselves http://windows.micros...hat-is-System-Restore if the installation of a program causes Windows to behave unpredictably and uninstalling doesn't fix the problem then that is when one can use system restore - and those are the only circumstances in which I have been using it. Restoring a disc image back-up is more of a last resort and was something that I was trying to avoid (but it would have been the next step).

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