Restore points are huge

[DarkPhoenix]

Instead of using Windows System Restore, you could try one of these apps, which have better compression methods than Windows system Restore and are known for lots smaller restore points.

These two both work the same way and are much better than System Restore..

Comodo Time Machine (Free!)

Data Recovery with Comodo Time Machine | Comodo

Rollback Rx (Commercial)

RollBack Rx - Windows System Restore Software - Download Today

Aside from having smaller restore points (called Snapshots by these programs), they are greatly superior to Windows System Restore in that the restore points do not reside on your C drive in Windows where it can be attacked and corrupted by virus.

These programs install to and save restore points on a layer of your hard drive that is underneath your Windows/C drive partition layer. Nothing from Windows, even a nasty virus can access them there.

This way, if you get hit with a virus that even cripples your Windows operating system to the point where it will not even boot, you can easily and quickly restore your system. The virus can wipe out everything and you can still recover.

This is a major draw back of window system restore because the restore points reside on your C drive. They are not protected from virus's in this manner.

 

[whs]

I agree with DarkPhoenix - anything on C is up for grabs. Besides, windows system restore does not always work the way you expect. Certain programs can block it from restoring anything (Norton is known for that).
The safer and more reliable approach is to use an imaging program where you can image to an external disk that you can switch off when not in use. I have used a ariety of those but prefer free Macrium because of it's simplicity and reliability. I posted a little tutorial a while ago to get you started.

 

[DarkPhoenix]

I agree with DarkPhoenix - anything on C is up for grabs. Besides, windows system restore does not always work the way you expect. Certain programs can block it from restoring anything (Norton is known for that).
The safer and more reliable approach is to use an imaging program where you can image to an external disk that you can switch off when not in use. I have used a ariety of those but prefer free Macrium because of it's simplicity and reliability. I posted a little tutorial a while ago to get you started.

I also use Macrium and I love it. Actually I recommend you use both for security and backup. Use Macrium for weekly backups for instance, and the other tools like Comodo Time Machine or Rollback Rx for daily restore points.

So I do not have tons of restore points piling up, I keep one as a base restore, and I update the one I use for a daily restore point. About every month or so I update my base restore point. In this manner you only have the two restore points to cover all of your recent changes.

Always virus check very good before backing up to an image or making a new restore point!

WHS, I read your tutorial it's perfect for a beginner starting out with Macrium.

 

[whs]

DarkPhoenix, I congratulate you for your good organization. I keep about 1TB worth of images and only clean them up when I run out of disk space (7 disks for 6 systems).

 

[sbrads]

Pimptaddy, have you got some program running regular defragmentation? I don't know about the Windows backup which I gave up on because of the lack of compression, but I know that other backup programs can end up doing effectively a whole image backup after a defrag because they think that everything has changed. I still use Restore Points though as it's handy for a quick fix sometimes.

 

[richc46]

Pimptaddy, have you got some program running regular defragmentation? I don't know about the Windows backup which I gave up on because of the lack of compression, but I know that other backup programs can end up doing effectively a whole image backup after a defrag because they think that everything has changed. I still use Restore Points though as it's handy for a quick fix sometimes.

Agreed, I think that System Restore is one of the major improvements over Windows XP. You should always have system restore enabled. You should, also, not limit it to one or two points, unless you are 100% certain that your OS has no problems, as of the last restore point.