If you’ve owned a PC for anywhere longer than a few weeks, chances are that you’ve quickly learned that hindsight is indeed always 20/20.
You don’t have to do very much to bring your Windows system to a point that you wished you hadn’t, such as installing an application or driver that is wreaking havoc on your system. If you’re running Windows XP, the System Restore feature can help you to travel back in time to a place where everything on your system worked just fine. So, if you need a way to restore your version of Windows to what in hindsight seemed like a friendlier, safer place, there are ways to get there.
Understanding System Restore
System Restore is one feature that you definitely should be familiar with if you find yourself in the habit of constantly tinkering with your system. Originally introduced in Windows ME, and made better in Windows XP, this feature allows you to restore your system to a previous configuration with a few simple mouse clicks. For example, let’s say that you’ve been running Windows XP for a while now, and one day decide to install what you think to be some great little utility. If the application is misbehaving, uninstalling it would be the logical first step, but sometimes even that doesn’t solve whatever problem you are experiencing. With the System Restore feature, you could simply restore your system to the way it was before you installed the program, without the need to worry about what an uninstall might leave behind. In that way, this feature allows you to truly restore your operating system to a previous point in time.
It’s not just the programs that you install that may cause problems, however. Other potential culprits include installing incorrect drivers, using the Windows Update feature, or accidentally deleting a required .DLL file. In any of these cases, System Restore can get you back to where you originally started, as long as you’ve planned things correctly.
System Restore is used to bring your operating system back to a previous point in time, but not your user data. In fact, System Restore ignores your personal data files completely, so you don’t need to worry about losing new email messages or data files if you choose to restore your system to a previous point in time. To that end, you should be aware that System Restore will not allow you to restore one of your data files that you have accidentally deleted, so be sure to back up your data as necessary using the Backup utility.
Enabling or Disabling System Restore
In most cases, you don’t need to do a whole lot of planning to run System Restore, since it runs automatically as long as your system has at least 200 MB of free space that the feature needs to operate. If you have less than 200 MB of free space available, System Restore will not function – it needs at least that much room to hold the backed up system data that would allow the restore process to return your system to a previous configuration.
On a Windows XP system, you have the option of selectively enabling or disabling System Restore on a system-wide or drive-by-drive basis as your needs require. For example, some users might choose to disable System Restore on all drives but drive C, especially if other drives are used for user data files only. This in turn will lead to better resource utilization. To disable system restore settings in XP, access the System Restore tab of the System program in Control Panel, as shown below. To disable or configure System Restore settings for a selected drive, click the drive letter and then the Settings button.
Creating and Restoring Restore Points
As part of its normal operation, System Restore will create a restore point automatically every day (called a system checkpoint). Additionally, the feature will also create a restore point when a “triggered event” occurs, such as when you attempt to install an application that is System Restore-aware, when the AutoUpdate feature is used, during a restore operation, and when installing an unsigned driver. (known as an installation restore point) As the disk space allocated to storing System Restore data fills, older restore points will be overwritten with newer ones. If you want the ability to restore older system information, consider allocating most disk space to System Restore.
While the automatic restore point processes may ultimately meet all your needs, it’s generally a good idea to create a restore point manually any time that you are making a significant system change, such as installing an older application, or a new signed driver.. For example, consider creating a restore point called “New Video Driver” prior to installing an updated driver for your card. Restore points are created by accessing the System Restore program from the System Tools menu
When you ultimately want to restore a previous restore point, you also use the System Restore program. The calendar feature will provide you with a list of restore points that are available, along with details of why the restore point was created, as shown below.
Last Known Good
If you’re running Windows 2000 or Windows XP, one additional quick-fix feature that you should be aware of is Last Known Good. Every time that Windows 2000 or XP completes the boot process, it makes a copy of the current Registry and stores it. So, if you make a change (like installing an incorrect driver) and want to attempt to reverse it with minimal effort, try rebooting the system using this option. To get to Last Known Good, press F8 at the operating system selection screen, and then choose this option from the menu. If all goes well, you should boot into your system using the previous configuration settings, with no harm done. However, you should note that the backup is overwritten every time the boot process completes. So, if you were to install a bad driver, reboot completely, then notice the problem and attempt to reboot and use Last Known Good, you would unfortunately be out of luck. In this particular situation, your best bet might be to use the Driver Rollback feature if you’re running Windows XP, and then try a System Restore.
Dan DiNicolo is a technical trainer, consultant, author, and the managing editor of the free IT learning web site 2000Trainers.com. When he’s not busy traveling the world as an IT volunteer with organizations like Geekcorps, Dan makes his home in the snowy northern backwoods of Canada.
