Windows 7: When does System Restore delete "old" System Restore Points?

When does System Restore delete "old" System Restore Points?

A few days ago, there were 3-4 SR points in the list.

Today there is only 1. Nothing significant has changed on the system.

I have no idea on the timing. This might give you a better idea how things work.
System Protection - Change Disk Space Usage

Have you done any defragmenting and if so, with what defragmenter?

Hi Darkstar,

Open control panel, open system, click on the system protection tab, then the configure button under protection settings. Then you'll see how much memory system restore has used. You can set it to whatever you want to. It also mentions that as space fills up older restore points will be deleted to make room for new ones.

I have no idea where your missing restore points have gone, but here's how I manage mine.

Restore points can get large if you have save old versions of file enabled. Also if you have large video files. When I'm getting ready to defrag I either delete or park any video files on my system disk to an external. Then I'll make a new restore point. I use CCleaner to delete all but that new one. Then defrag. If video files are under one of the folders that restore backs up, you can get some really large restore points. If the disk space usage setting is conservative then the system may delete them to make room for the new one.

Thanks, guys.

Nope, no defragging. I have NIS 2012 but "Insight Optimizer" (which calls Windows Defrag) is disabled

Yep, I had already checked that, which is where I initially saw that the sapce used had decreased.

No new large files, as far as I can see. Where do I see if "old versions" is enabled and turn it off? Similarly for "conservative" disk space usage?

The "save old versions of files" may not be in the settings on Home Premium. But you may be able to recover some old versions of files using Shadow Explorer free program. Windows must save the files by default for Shadow Explorer to work. I guess it amounts to on Ultimate(or whatever Windows flavors support that setting) you can turn it off to make smaller restore points.

Also there may be some command line method to override settings missing in the Gui. Like in Vista there's no setting controlling the percentage of the disk space reserved for restore points. But you can set it from the command line. For example, I use this on my Vista64 system to set it to 24 GB max:

vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=24GB

You probably need to run such commands from an administrative command prompt. I'm sure there's an article in the Tutorials how to open an Admin Command Prompt. Just search if you need directions.

October "Patch Tuesday" was a few days ago.
Did you apply the updates for this?
You can look in Windows Update History to see if/when these updates were installed.

In post #6 Insight Optimizer
Been doing a little Goggling and it seem that Norton's Insight Optimizer is still some what a mystery. It could be removing some restore points to optimize your system. I defrag using the CMD Prompt. Just type in defrag and you will get various options to pick from. I use this
defrag C: /U /V
I know of no optimizer no mater what brand needed or wanted by Windows 7.