I found my disk getting a bit heavy with files which turned out to be the large number of restore points. I found I could remove all but the last using 'windows cleanup' but I wonder if going forward there's a way to selectively remove some and keep others.
System Restore has saved my butt many times and also made me look like supertech to clients. For that reason, I let Windows manage my System Restore points.
But, you can go to System Properties/System Protection Tab and manage how much space it uses by clicking on Configure.
The panel below will come up and where you set what you want.
A restore point is actually a container of "previous contents of blocks". Only blocks that changed of course. So a restore point contains rollback information. You can only rollback to previous restore point. Then restore point before that et cetera. Of course you can rollback to a restore point a long time ago, but logically it is a rollback, another rollback etc.
So deleting a restore point makes all older restore points useless (and invalid). You can only merge 2 adjacent restore points. But anyway... you call that delete.
There is a tool that can do that.
I guess that addressed my concern. So, just to get this straight: if I want to restore to a previous date in time and there were more than one restore point preceding that date's, I would restore it and then restore those preceding it?
Assume the following:
Restore point created: 15 jan 2014 3:10
Restore point created: 13 jan 2014 3:10
Restore point created: 10 jan 2014 3:10
Restore point created: 2 jan 2014 5:10
Restore point created: 1 jan 2014 3:10
Actually those are rollback points. To rollback to "Restore point created: 2 jan 2014 5:10". You have to rollback to 15 jan 2014 3:10, then 13 jan 2014 3:10, then 10 jan 2014 3:10, then 2 jan 2014 5:10.
You can do it in one action.... but internally the system does was is described above.
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Restore point created: 10 jan 2014 3:10 => this restore point has all the blocks that changed from Restore point created: 10 jan 2014 3:10 till Restore point created: 13 jan 2014 3:10. It contains the block contents as it was on 10 jan 2014 3:10. So it can reconstruct the situation as it was on 10 jan 2014 3:10.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but using your own example, if all I want is to "Restore point created: 2 jan 2014 5:10" what do I need to do, just click on the reference to it in the restore window or go through all the other additional rigamarole?
All I do is pick the date and time of the restore point and tick on it. Then tick on okay and that is it. Nothing fancy just don't do anything on your computer while it is restoring.
Take a read through this Tutorial by Brink.
System Restore
Thanks for the interesting interpretations of my original inquiry. Attached is a screenshot. It has always seemed a bit anomalous that someone would be making a backup on the same media which came into harm's way....I do have a 1GB USB3 external hdd I create backups using a 3rd party product. However I understood the built-in 'restore points' to be an easier way to return to a prior state. I'm not a big backer-upper sort of dude. I try to create an image backup around once a month.
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