Any reason to not use System Restore?

I

IsaacMM

Gawd
Joined
Jun 9, 2008
Messages
646
I always used it quite frequently, but now i am wondering if it is bad to the system?
 
it wont hurt your computer, its useful in case something breaks.
Some people don't like the fact that it uses more hard drive space, and disable it
because they don't care about reinstalling if they have to.

The choice is yours really.
 
IsaacMM said:
I always used it quite frequently, but now i am wondering if it is bad to the system?
Click to expand...

It is not bad for your system. The advantages of not using it is that it is a service that can be turned off to save resources (albeit not many) and it will save you hard drive space not using it. The cons to not using it is it is one less way to restore data loss and to fix certain problems like a pesky virus.
 
System Restore is NOT a foolproof cureall for problems. Despite what MS claims, it does not actually take a 'snapshot' of the system at specific points in time. What it does do is create a backup of certain system files which have one of a specific list of filename extensions, as well as a backup of the registry and most device drivers.

If a person is frequently using System Restore then there'll almost inevitably be accumulated system installation corruption. Cause rather than symptom should be addressed, if problems are severe or persistent.
 
I've never used it. I don't think it's horrible to leave on, but I typically turn it off. I think it's a tool for people who don't know what they're doing to fix issues.
 
i leave it enabled on my system but i ive never used it. on customer PCs it's a last resort if they have major problems and have Windows Media Center Ed. and no recovery disc or the recovery partition is corrupt. even then it doesnt always work. takes 30 mins on some systems to restore a saved point and after the 30 mins tells you it was unsuccessful...

i format whenever possible
 
System restore can be very helpful if something updates and makes a mess after.
I've recovered numerous machines with it including my own.
ie one machine lost all internet after iTunes updated.
Rolling back Windows to just before the update occurred sorted it (tested a few times) and got his daughter a ban from using iTunes lol.

I only have system restore enabled on my windows boot drive and periodically delete most of the backup folders after the machine has been stable for some time.
 
I just wanted to point out that leaving system restore on is a requirement for previous versions. So, if you are running Business or Ultimate, leave it on.

As for use... I've used it once or twice to fix something stupid I've done. I'm glad it's there even if I never need to use it. You shouldn't run into problems by using it though I wouldn't want to use it more than once and a while.
 
On a clean install, it's up to you. If you're infected with a virus or stubborn malware, you should disable it while you clean the threats to make it harder for them to reinstall themselves.

I don't think I've ever used it for any of my systems, but I used it once or twice for my parents some years ago.
 
It has never worked in the past when I've ever tried using it, so I'd prefer to just solve the issue than to rollback instead. I disable it completely.
 
I almost always disable in cases of virii. I use it when adobe or java bork something. It usually takes like fifteen minutes, its better than backing up user data, imaging, updating, and putting back files and progs the user had.
 
System Restore in Vista is more powerful than that in XP, since it operates through creating shadow copies of all changed files, not just a snapshot of some files. This is why Previous Versions works for any file.

I think it's useful to keep on. Hard drive space is cheap, really, and it's been useful a couple of times - once recently, actually, when an update failed to install correctly and the system then didn't boot. Rolling it back to the automatically-created restore point before the updates fixed the issue and I then installed the updates successfully.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top