Do you have enabled System Protection?

I've always left the System Protection feature in place and don't see a great reason to have it disabled. I've never experienced it thrashing the harddrive...at least nothing where I noticed a performance drop.

As far as uninstalling something and learning from the experience...that isn't always easy to do. For example, if you use a spyware cleaner or reg cleaner and it wreaks havoc...not easy to just reverse it's changes.

The only change that I make is reduce the % of the harddrive that system protection can consume. On my box at home, it's set at 2%

It is something that I RARELY use...but when I have needed it, it has worked out very well for no effort on my part.

Turned mine off as iv never needed to used it. System Restore is like putting a band aid over a shotgun blast IMO.

If you've damaged your pc that much then you should probably just do a clean install of windows.

stew2 said:

Turned mine off as iv never needed to used it. System Restore is like putting a band aid over a shotgun blast IMO.

If you've damaged your pc that much then you should probably just do a clean install of windows.

Talk about a band aid over a shotgun blast.

So, a while back at work I installed some CD burning application to make some type of specialized disc. However, once installed, my usual burning apps such as Roxio or IMGBurn no longer saw my DVD burner. So, i uninstalled the newer cd burning app, but low and behold Roxio and ImgBurn still couldn't see my DVD Burner. I rebooted the machine, still no good. I reinstalled both Roxio and imgburn and still they couldn't see see my DVD burner.

So, I used system restore and went back right before I installed the cd burning application. And everything was back to working fine. Having to reinstall Windows onto my work PC would have been a serious loss of productive worktime. System Restore fixed it in a flash.

I've probably only needed it about 3 times in the past 5 years....but when I did need it...it was there.

Exactly...I just don't understand the argument..."I turn it off as I have never needed it before". It never proves it's purpose until that very first time that you actually do make use of it. It's like saying, "I never wear a seatbelt as I've never been in an accident before, therefore I don't need to wear this seatbelt".

I could see the benefit of disabling it, if
1). hard drive was EXPENSIVE and very limited
2). Hard drive performance was terribly slow so using it bogged the system down to a crawl

But since neither of those are really an issue...I just don't see the obvious advantage in "immediately turning it off". Saying it like that seems like a nerd badge of honor...but I don't really see the point.

pparks1 said:

I just don't understand the argument.

You dont need to understand how i use my pc. You probably use apps like ccleaner, itunes, anything by google etc that i would not let near my pc. Each to their own.

If you have a need for system restore then continue to use it. Its your pc lol

Not trying to be judgemental and certainly not flaming guys...I just think some don't think of the full ramifications of some of these actions. If you have read my examples and still feel like you have made the best choice...then that is fine. Some may read through an example that I have posted and think...hey I never thought of it in that situation.

stew2 said:

You probably use apps like ccleaner, itunes, anything by google etc that i would not let near my pc

Actually...no I am very selective about what gets on my PC. I'm a systems engineer and have been for the last 12 years. The apps that get installed on my machine are all legal, mostly open-source, and generally cause very few problems. ( I generally use Notepad++, MediaMonkey, VMWare, Firefox, OpenOffice, TrueCrypt, vlc, paint.net, handbrake, Fox It PDF reader, imgburn, putty, winscp and 7zip).