Returning Your System to a Predefined State with System Restore

System Restore can be a life saver if your PC suffers a catastrophic failure. The System Restore feature is available in the Windows Vista Backup and Restore Center, which provides a central interface to all the backup and recovery features available in your edition of Windows Vista. The major backup tools are easily accessible.

System Restore (introduced with Windows XP) enables you to restore your PC to a previous state without losing any of your personal data. It works by creating easily identifiable restore points, which you can use to revert your system to the way it was at a previous time. You can create restore points both at the time of significant system events and periodically. You can also create and name restore points at any time.

Windows Vista offers some performance enhancements over Windows XP System Restore, including the recovery from a greater range of changes.

Automatic Restore Points

When you request a restore point in Windows Vista, Windows creates a shadow copy of a file or folder. This shadow copy is a previous version of the file or folder captured at a specific time.

You can configure Windows Vista to request restore points automatically (recommended) or manually. When you run a restoration, files and settings are copied from the shadow copy to the live volume used by Windows Vista.

Running System Restore

System Restore is turned on by default on all volumes on your PC. The System Restore function regularly tracks changes to your computer's hard disk volumes and creates restore points. You can select which volumes have System Protection turned on.

Be cautious when turning off System Protection on a volume, because this action deletes all of the restore points for that volume. You cannot restore the volume until you turn System Protection on and it creates a new restore point.

You can only turn System Restore on and off if you have administrator access to your PC. Additionally, if your PC resides on a corporate network, Group Policy settings might prevent you from turning system restore on and off.

The following are the steps to turn System Restore on and off:

1. Choose Start Control Panel System and Maintenance System.

2. Click System Protection on the left pane.

3. Select or clear the volume you want to configure under Create Restore Points Automatically On The Selected Volumes. Click OK.

Creating a Restore Point

Microsoft defines a restore point as "a representation of a stored state of your computer's system files." System Restore creates restore points at specific intervals and when it detects the beginning of a change to your computer. You can create a restore point manually at any time as well.

To create a restore point manually:

1. Choose Start Control Panel System And Maintenance and then click System.

2. Choose System Protection. The System Protection tab appears.

3. Click Create.

4. Type a description for the restore point in the System Protection dialog box, and then click Create.