Windows XP help - System Restore

jimrx4 wrote:
Somehow I've lost the ability to create a restore point. When trying the
green progress bar flows from left to right on and on - never creating a
point. I checked shadow copy and it's set to automatic, and in services
all is normal. Any ideas out there?

So you've been to the Control Panels, selected the
System control panel, selected System Protection,
checked that C: has protection enabled, and you
also adjusted the storage size to at least 3GB ?

And does the C: drive (perhaps on a 32GB eMMC) actually
have room left for a System Restore point ?

If you have one of the more fancy, automated, storage
solutions, those can burn up all your VSS shadows
(max 64), and not only prevent Restore Points, but
also prevent scheduled backups from happening. It
is possible to break a number of things, with a
too-aggressive backup/data protection solution.

There is "vssadmin" for querying how things are going.
From an administrator window, you could try this for fun.

vssadmin list shadows

In lieu of someone else kicking in a few more ideas,
you can always try Process Monitor from Sysinternals
(owned by Microsoft), and collect a trace for the
few minutes the thing attempts to run.

You could also look in the TroubleShooters control panel
and use the search box and see if a "restore" or
"protection" item is present. The TroubleShooters
are pretty gutless, but they're all we've got
(when available).

A Repair Install might fix it, except in cases where
this is a structural problem causes by the programs
you regularly run. That's why you have to think about
what programs you use which have "shadow" in the name
or the like.

If VSS has a writers problem when a shadow is made,
that may be enough to stop it.

This article has some examples of

vssadmin list writers

where the writers are throwing errors. This is not good.

https://kb.datto.com/hc/en-us/articl...ws-Server-2003

Paul