Why do people not have any System Restore points

[Ztruker]

Wandered far from my original question

As usual, this topic (System Restore) ends up wandering far away from my original question. I also use other backup methods (Acronis (external HD and online) and Mirror Folder), but that has nothng to do with my question.

I think another of Shawn's (Brink) excellent tutorials on setting up System Restore, either after installing Windows 7 or initial use of a purchased system would be an excellent idea.

Whether people here use or don't use SR is irrelevant to the initial question. People do depend on it and it's often one of the first things recommended to correct a problem, here and on other forums.

So, back to my initial question. Why does Windows 7 create so few, or no, System Restore points. Why is none created after the successful install of Win 7?

I just looked at a Home Premium system that was installed 12/1/09 and there are only 6 restore points, all in 2010.

3/4, 3/31, 4/12, 4/13 (2) and 4/14.

The last 4 are labeled Critical Update, so it does not look like Win 7 creates restore points on any kind of a regular basis.

 

[whs]

Let me try to answer your question:

1. It would make little sense for the system to make a restore point when initially setup - unless it was done into a dedicated space. The current shadowstorage setup is a round robin system and the initial restore point would very quickly disappear from the radar screen.
If you want something permanent from the initial setup, you have to image to an external device (external disk or DVD).
2. The frequency of the restore points in Win7 has changed. In Vista it was quasi every day, but now it is supposed to be every week plus when system updates and program installations are being made. But your example suggests that the "every week" theory does not work.
3. I found windows system restore to be very unreliable in all aspects and therefore do not use it for the system any more. I do imaging instead. I do, however, write restore points (shadows) on my data disks/partition. Reason is that this is an additional resource to recover lost files - with Shadow Explorer.

 

[mpcrsc562]

As usual, this topic (System Restore) ends up wandering far away from my original question. I also use other backup methods (Acronis (external HD and online) and Mirror Folder), but that has nothng to do with my question.

I think another of Shawn's (Brink) excellent tutorials on setting up System Restore, either after installing Windows 7 or initial use of a purchased system would be an excellent idea.

Whether people here use or don't use SR is irrelevant to the initial question. People do depend on it and it's often one of the first things recommended to correct a problem, here and on other forums.

So, back to my initial question. Why does Windows 7 create so few, or no, System Restore points. Why is none created after the successful install of Win 7?

I just looked at a Home Premium system that was installed 12/1/09 and there are only 6 restore points, all in 2010.

3/4, 3/31, 4/12, 4/13 (2) and 4/14.

The last 4 are labeled Critical Update, so it does not look like Win 7 creates restore points on any kind of a regular basis.

I'm sure I'll be corrected, but it initially sets itself up as a percent in proportion to your hard drive space -- just like the recycle bin space. I don't know what the default setting is, but let's say 3% -- 3% of 1TB is greater than 3% of 160GB, thus on the 160GB drive, there would be less save spots than on a TB drive.

But, you can use the slider to increase the amount of saves if you so desire.

As far as creating one after an installation, I don't know why it doesn't.

 

[Thorsen]

It, as shown by so many posters here, is not trusted as a valuable tool by power users.

Unexperienced users dont even know it exists and only find out what it is when some critical failure happens.

Between these two, no-one is using it as it is designed.

It makes a restore point automatically each week by default to cover your but incase you need it. Unless it is disabled which leads me to:

The Triple Threat. Power users who are unexperienced who disable it on anyone's machine they sit down at (because all it does is eat up RAM and CPU power). <thats my favorite

Most people are also prone to procrastinate or not jump in and fix something the first day (or even call thier techy friend to ask for help). If System Restore made a restore point everyday, by the time the user tries to resolve the problem, all the good restore points might be overwritten. So weekly restore points are better than none.

Also one is created each time there is a critical update so if MS messes up your system, their butt is covered as well. But no one is advised that one is created or what to do when an update messes up your system.

 

[chev65]

I don't trust images at all either. I've seen way too many strange problems occur after using a restore point. I can reinstall Windows in ten minutes and I have everything backed up on five different machines so a clean install is a better option for me.

 

[whs]

I don't know what the default setting is, but let's say 3%

I think the default setting is variable between 3 and 15% depending on the size of the disk - But I do not know the slices.

If System Restore made a restore point everyday, by the time the user tries to resolve the problem, all the good restore points might be overwritten

That is a valid point. In Vista, they were too quickly overwritten and one could usually only go back a few days.

 

[Thorsen]

Trying to help a user right now and he has no restore points. Dont know if it would have solved his problem, but it might have. just sayin

 

[antharr]

The Triple Threat. Power users who are unexperienced who disable it on anyone's machine they sit down at (because all it does is eat up RAM and CPU power). <thats my favorite

I only disable on my machine. I would never do this on anyone's machine other than my own.

 

[antharr]

Trying to help a user right now and he has no restore points. Dont know if it would have solved his problem, but it might have. just sayin

The same could be said about the user not having any images as well. If you are not going to create images then I would recommend using restore points.

 

[Thorsen]

I agree antharr. Unfortunately, most people dont know how to create backup images or even use system restore. I think it is great to have as default on the machine. I think it should be replaced with a better backup option if you know what you are doing, but for the general public it is great. Again, just my opinion.

I also in no way meant to insult anyone or say anyone here is a Triple Threat. I probably have been in my younger years learning the system and thinking I knew everything.

 

[antharr]

I agree antharr. Unfortunately, most people dont know how to create backup images or even use system restore. I think it is great to have as default on the machine. I think it should be replaced with a better backup option if you know what you are doing, but for the general public it is great. Again, just my opinion.

I also in no way meant to insult anyone or say anyone here is a Triple Threat. I probably have been in my younger years learning the system and thinking I knew everything.

No offense here. I myself have been guilty of thinking I knew much more than I really did. It's only when you are looking at a hosed machine that you realize you were a tad bit too cocky. That's how we learn though.

 

[CarlTR6]

No offense here. I myself have been guilty of thinking I knew much more than I really did. It's only when you are looking at a hosed machine that you realize you were a tad bit too cocky. That's how we learn though.

Very, very true. Been there;done that.

 

[Ztruker]

Let me pour a little more oil on the fire

Just checked my home Pro X64 system and it appears that every time the virus signature database for Windows Security Essentials is updated, it creates a restore point first.

Since these updates are happening every day, via Automatic Updates, I'm getting a restore point a day at home, but not at work which also runs Windows Security Essentials. There I let the updates happen whenever WSE wants to install them. At home I often use the "New updates are available" icon in the System Tray to install them (impatient).

 

[Ztruker]

Another similar thread just started

Just saw this thread:

http://www.sevenforums.com/performa...m-restore-works-only-manually.html#post684217

In that one, richc46 said

"System restore will only make an automatic point if none were made in the last 7 days."

with a link that eventually ended up here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa378910(VS.85).aspx

so that answers my question about frequency of restore point creation.

I have SR turned off for all but my boot drive which is a 80GB SATA and SR at 3% uses 2.3GB which seems to hold about 8 restore points.

 

[SIW2]

System restore is little understood and imo a work of genius.

It doesn't always fix the problem - but it's extremely useful.

People used to complain Vista "used up " a lot of disk space.

That's largely because the Vista default is to create a restore point every 24 hrs ( unless one has already been made in the last 24 hrs ).

The complainers obviously don't realize how useful it is - and what's the point of having that disk space sitting there empty.

MS have "given the public what they want " , for understandable reasons - but it's a step backward imo.

In 7 a restore pt is created only every 7 days by default ( if there hasn't already been one in the last seven days). MS have also reduced the default space allocated to shadow copies - so there are fewer points to go back to - and the most recent one might be a week old.

Not very useful if something just went wrong - you want to go back to this morning , or maybe yesterday - but preferably not a whole week.

 

[whs]

In light of that it has become even more important to work with images. Unfortunately they made the Win7 imaging unnecessarily complex again so that it is hard to tune and understand what is happening. But fortunately there are other options.

 

[antharr]

The complainers obviously don't realize how useful it is - and what's the point of having that disk space sitting there empty.

I really didn't hear anyone complaining. I would complain if Windows would not allow me to disable it. I do realize it can be useful for some and that's all good. I have only stated that it has failed on me and imaging has had a 100% success rate. Therefore I prefer to use images and backups. I have been using this feature for about 10 years now and it has become obvious that it's not something I would trust as a backup plan for my machines.

Also it isn't about the disk space because I have plenty of that. I don't like something chewing up resources when I never intend to use it.

 

[SIW2]

I wasn't referring to you, Antharr - you obviously know what you are doing and have your own backup strategy.

I meant those who complained about it on Vista.

People used to complain Vista "used up " a lot of disk space.

That's largely because the Vista default is to create a restore point every 24 hrs ( unless one has already been made in the last 24 hrs ).

The complainers obviously don't realize how useful it is - and what's the point of having that disk space sitting there empty.

 

[antharr]

I wasn't referring to you, Antharr - you obviously know what you are doing and have your own backup strategy.

I meant those who complained about it on Vista.

People used to complain Vista "used up " a lot of disk space.

That's largely because the Vista default is to create a restore point every 24 hrs ( unless one has already been made in the last 24 hrs ).

The complainers obviously don't realize how useful it is - and what's the point of having that disk space sitting there empty.

Gotcha. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

 

[smarteyeball]

System restore is little understood and imo a work of genius.

It doesn't always fix the problem - but it's extremely useful.

+ 1

Personally, I manually create mine when making certain changes - just so it doesn't get automatically deleted. Space is not an issue for me, so I have configured SR to use a larger % of space. I then decide when it's okay to delete the saved restore points.


If for some reason SR fails to it's job, then I simply boot into another installation, copy what I need from my user directories etc and then format and start from scratch.


However that is merely my personal method which suits me.