System Protection Restore Points And On Backup Disks ?

Hello,

a. Thought it would be a good idea to configure and use System Restore.

Got to it O.K. in "System," and created a Restore Point "Right-Now".
Seems to have done it fine.

But I cannot find the menu for telling it how often to create one. e.g.,
every week or so.
Windows 7 had this option.

Where do I find it please ? Or is it "automatic" in W10 ?

b. Also, I noticed that Protection for the "IMAGE" Folder is turned Off.
Should it be turned to On ? How ?

c. And something I should have asked befo

Are there System type of "Backup" CD's I should create now in case
something happens ?
If so, which and how, please ?

Thanks,
Bob

Bob wrote:
Hello,

a. Thought it would be a good idea to configure and use System Restore.

Got to it O.K. in "System," and created a Restore Point "Right-Now".
Seems to have done it fine.

But I cannot find the menu for telling it how often to create one. e.g.,
every week or so.
Windows 7 had this option.

Where do I find it please ? Or is it "automatic" in W10 ?

b. Also, I noticed that Protection for the "IMAGE" Folder is turned Off.
Should it be turned to On ? How ?

c. And something I should have asked befo

Are there System type of "Backup" CD's I should create now in case
something happens ?
If so, which and how, please ?

Thanks,
Bob

System Restore
--------------

System Restore is mainly for keeping copies of the
Registry. It can also help roll back a driver install
or roll back a program install. Generally, it's not
a good idea to enable it on more than the C: partition.

Scheduled Tasks has a call, but I suspect it's
a sham.

%windir%\system32\srtasks.exe ExecuteScheduledSPPCreation

The idea would be, if you use that particular call,
it checks somewhere else to see if it is actually time
to generate a restore point.

You may have to open Regedit, and override the 7 day default.
The key doesn't exist so you create it.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore
RPGlobalInterval DWORD 86400

That would in theory define an SR point, daily, if it works.
You wouldn't need to add anything other than that key. The
ExecuteScheduledSPPCreation may run daily, but on each
invocation, it should check whether the interval (86400 seconds)
has expired.

In the presence of malware, System Restore is of limited value.
In fact, a malware removal expert, turns off System Restore
causing the restore points to be flushed, as one of his
first steps. Virtually all malware knows how to infect the
restore points, so a restore point is only intended to
fix "Windows problems" not "malware problems".

Windows 7 Backup
----------------

Backups can "image" an entire partition, as a form of
disaster recovery. Or do "file by file", as if you could
not randomly access the former item.

Windows 10, as a kind of joke, has a control panel
item called "Windows 7 Backup". Apparently, Microsoft
got the message that some users liked W7 backup,
and even though Microsoft kinda trashed it in
Windows 8.1, they brought it back.

What it does, is creates a single folder under a
disk letter (preferably on your external backup drive),
and it puts a VHD (virtual hard disk) file
per partition being backed up. The minimum it would
back up for Windows 7, would be SYSTEM RESERVED (100MB)
and C: (many gigabytes). You could add additional partitions
if you wanted. The "System Image" function was supposed
to snapshot enough stuff, so you could replace
a borked hard drive and your OS would boot.

To use it later, you can make a recovery CD. Whatever
panel has the "System Image" button, will also have a
button to make the recovery CD. The recovery CD is 200MB,
and is just enough files to boot WinPE and do the restore
from there. The CD doesn't contain your files. The
backup files are on your external drive.

The folder of stuff in the backup, gets overwritten, if you
create a second backup. If you "move" the folder by changing
the name of the folder, you can keep a particular
instance.

I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with
the format. The VHD files can be "attached" while you
are in Disk Management, so the contents can be randomly
accessed. If you need a copy of your bank statement, you
could dig it up.

It may have had some file by file capabilities, but I haven't
even looked to see what's in the Win10 version.

Macrium Reflect, Easeus, or other freebie backups
-------------------------------------------------

Some of those can be scheduled. Having scheduled backups
means needing to power up the backup drive before the
backup is run. While some drives can be set to "sleep"
in Windows, you don't really know how many times a day
Windows "pesters" the drive and causes it to spin up.
Which may contribute to a shortened life, if there were
more than 300,000 of those.

This class of backup tools, also uses recovery or rescue CDs.
And that's in case the main hard drive has been replaced,
and you no longer have a C: partition to boot up. The CD
is your bootable media. Again, the CD contains on the
order of 200MB of files, a copy of WinPE, and gives
you a nice GUI windows to kick off a restore. In the
case of Macrium, you point it at the .mrimg file you
want restored, and it can put back an entire drive
stored in there.

Backup automation uses incremental and differential backups.
Wikipedia has definitions. These terms come up, when the
topic of "scheduled backups" comes up. The first article,
has the nice diagrams that really define it for you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_backup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_backup

The GUI on Macrium 6 is a bit more intimidating than the
Macrium 5 version. Which means when I help computer-phobic
people, they kinda flip when they see it :-) But that's
just the nature of backup software - as it becomes mature,
it becomes "mean and ugly". If backup software
doesn't have a 150 page to 250 page manual, there
must be something wrong with it.

HTH,
Paul

Paul,

Perhaps you (or someone) can clarify something for me.

It seems that if a computer OS is damaged and one
can use a repair/restore/backup/whatever disk to recover then
that disk could be applied to a qualified, empty computer and
install the OS.

This *can't* be true, but why? It would be instructive to me.

(by the way I just got the 283 page Macrium manual and
will bury it for use in November 2037)

masonc wrote:
Paul,

Perhaps you (or someone) can clarify something for me.

It seems that if a computer OS is damaged and one
can use a repair/restore/backup/whatever disk to recover then
that disk could be applied to a qualified, empty computer and
install the OS.

This *can't* be true, but why? It would be instructive to me.

Modern Windows OSes are protected by Activation.

If you restore Windows to a different computer, the
OS will report "Not genuine".

So they will know you are cheating.

Paul

On 11/21/2015 03:39 AM, Paul wrote:

[snip]

Modern Windows OSes are protected by Activation.

Think about that. WHAT is being protected? Not you. Not your computer.
Not the software on it.

It sounds like "protected" is a serious misuse of the word here.

[snip]

--
34 days until the winter celebration (Friday December 25, 2015 12:00:00
AM for 1 day).

"The dogma of the divinity of Jesus should have died on the cross, when
the man of Nazareth gave up the ghost." [Lemuel K. Washburn, _Is The
Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays_]

masonc wrote on 11/20/2015 9:58 PM:
Paul,

Perhaps you (or someone) can clarify something for me.

It seems that if a computer OS is damaged and one
can use a repair/restore/backup/whatever disk to recover then
that disk could be applied to a qualified, empty computer and
install the OS.

This *can't* be true, but why? It would be instructive to me.

(by the way I just got the 283 page Macrium manual and
will bury it for use in November 2037)


If your disk image backup software has the feature "Restore to
dissimilar hardware", then, yes you could do that. But, assuming
Windows, it probably won't be functional since the OS is going to, at
some point, check to see if it's a legitimate installation and it's not.

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
When he who hears does not know what he who speaks means, and when he
who speaks does not know what he himself means, that is philosophy -
Voltaire

Sam E wrote:
On 11/21/2015 03:39 AM, Paul wrote:

[snip]

Modern Windows OSes are protected by Activation.

Think about that. WHAT is being protected? Not you. Not your computer.
Not the software on it.

It sounds like "protected" is a serious misuse of the word here.

[snip]


It's a T&C of a product you bought.

You don't have to buy that product.

You could still be using Win98 or Win2K. Plenty of
people do.

I build my own computers, so I don't have to
suffer the indignity of finding an OEM OS
on the hard drive. It's my choice as to what
I buy or what I install on my home-built computer.

Activation keeps the sheep in line. Plenty of
software sharing in China, in spite of it.
(Microsoft makes little money in China.)
Plenty of software sharing in the UK too.
Even inside corporations.

If I wanted to right now, I could whip out a
copy of DAZ Loader. Done. So in its way,
the price of Microsoft software is a
"suggested donation". Think about it.
Think about what would happen if everyone
had a copy of DAZ Loader, and chose to use it.
Or if everyone installed that copy of WinXP Black.

Activation hasn't really done anything,
except tweak your conscience.

And by the way, this is why there is an App Store.
It's a subtle way to control "sharing", but at
the application level. The price of the
individual applications is lower, so you
will be tempted to accept the T&C, just like
in the other case. So far, there are no compelling
applications in the App Store. Just 200,000 copies
of Angry Birds.

Paul

On Sat, 21 Nov 2015 11:11:21 -0600, Sam E wrote:

On 11/21/2015 03:39 AM, Paul wrote:

[snip]

Modern Windows OSes are protected by Activation.

Think about that. WHAT is being protected? Not you. Not your computer.
Not the software on it.

It sounds like "protected" is a serious misuse of the word here.

[snip]

I thought it was rather inconsiderate of him to have left out the
quotation marks around the word "protected". If he had used quotes, it
would have saved you the need to 'clarify the issue'. :-)

--
Johnny B Good