Windows 7: Verify Restore Point was created

Hey all. Referencing this article:
Where are restore point files stored?



Since I'm the typical paranoid sysadmin type, I like to ensure that what actions I've done are not only documented, but that the system did what it was told. Does anyone here know how to verify (without applying the restore) that the "create restore point" worked? Since Windows locks the folder "System Volume Information", I can't access it, nor do I really want to muck around with permissions to allow me to do so. But, surely I'm not the only one out there that wants to view this sort of thing after Windows said it did what I told it. I'd hate to be caught without a system restore point when I know I told Windows to do it.

I'm sure you know that you can "view" restore points within the System Restore settings.

As far as I know, that is the best you can do.

But even if you could "know" in some more complete sense, I don't know what good it would do-----you still wouldn't know if that restore point would in fact restore your system if you used it.

In my experience, System Restore is very valuable, but I have had maybe 1 or 2 percent of restore points fail---I got an error message to that effect.

Loadedmind, welcome to the windows 7 forums.

As far as I know there isn't any way to verify that a system restore point will be valid when you go to restore it.

I recommend using one of the free imaging software products referenced here on windows 7 forums.
Or pay a small fee for a commercial version. I user Acronis and others use something else.
Also, I recommend creating an image on a regular basis on an external drive that you can hook up later and restore your complete system back to what it was when you created the image(s)

Rich

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Thanks all. And thanks for the welcome! The background from the original request is that I'm a sysadmin responsible for test dev equipment which is a small datacenter. I was recently asked to stand up a couple of Windows 7 VM's and wanted to ensure backup/restore compliance without tape backups currently. Thanks again!