Windows 7: Problem with System Restore !

Get this, I created a system restore point right before going about installing ZA firewall and sure enough problems arise ! So I tried using System Restore in order to roll back my computer after a failed install of ZoneAlarm Firewall (By the way stay away from Zone Alarm, they used to be good but not anymore, it wouldn't install on my system. Just right at the end of the installation my whole system froze and I had to do a hard reboot. I don't know why it did that but anyway) I wanted to use System Restore to revert my system to before the install of Zone Alarm, however when I went to do it gave me this :

SEE SCREENSHOT

I tried using safe mode and start up repair however it would tell me that System Restore was turned off when clearly it wasn't. Anyway I ended up turning System Restore off and on thus losing all my restore points and missing the whole purpose of why I wanted to use System Restore in the first place.

Afterwards, I decided to scan my system to see If a virus perhaps might have caused System Restore to act like a b&itch. I scanned using Malwarebytes Full System Scan and it came up clean.

So long story short, I just ended up using Revo Uninstaller to uninstall what was a failed attempt at installing ZoneAlarm firewall and to clean up whatever crap it left on my system.

sigh, precious time wasted. Needless to say I was distraught and upset

Now I'm left looking for a free reliable firewall. I could live with just the built in Windows firewall, however I want more friendly control over outbound connections. And yes I tried Sphinx Windows 7 Firewall control, but found that the free version was too basic and wasn't my cup of tea. And unfortunately I don't have dough to buy the pro version.




Thoughts ?

Welcome

Do you think that you may like something like this:
Firewall Software Download | Free Computer Protection

This restore conflict is a little strange. Are you sure there was shadowstorage allocated. Because system restore could be on, but if no shadowstorage was allocated, it cannot write any restore points (shadows).

as far as I know everything was turned on. Again I don't know why it gave me that. Anyway it doesn't matter now, but I tell ya sometimes technology really really makes me

I have a feeling it's whatever security suite you have running that is causing the problem.

Have you tried disabling your security suite in "services.msc" until the you're done with the system restore?

I'm currently running Norton 360, and that won't let System Restore successfully complete unless it's completely disabled.

I would check it anyhow - to avoid a problem in the future. The easiest is to open an elevated Command Prompt and paste this command into it.

vssadmin list shadowstorage

Look for maximum on C. It should be 10 to 15% of your C-disk capacity. If it is only 300MB, then it is the minimum and not enough to write a shadow which is usually 500MB to 1GB in size.

If you're running Norton;

go to "Miscellaneous Settings - Norton Product Tamper Protection -Turn Off"

Now you can run System Restore.

With that said, MS screwed the pooch with System Restore in Win 7 and doesn't seem to be much interested in fixing it...

That Norton problem existed already in Vista. Apparently MS can do little about it because Norton makes modifications to the system. One more reason to use MSE.