System Restore won't keep restore points

I have a Dell Dimension 8200 with XP, SP3 , Windows Firewall, Avast antivirus, Spywareblaster, and run Firefox for the Internet and all the programs work well together and are up to date.

Recently I noticed that System Restore isn’t storing the restore points I’ve made.

The only other issue I have is that Live Messenger will not complete a previous upload process and I’ve tried (6) times but it seems it’s caught in a loop. I’ve tried using system restore to finish the process but it never does yet I keep having these pop-ups saying a new version is available. I'm trying to log-in to Hotmail via Live Messenger;
I can always log-in via a web browser but I was hoping to still use Live Messenger as my client application. Although as I understand it Live Messenger is being phased out in favor of Skype so I will have to find some other client application, perhaps via MSN but that is the only other issue I have at present.

Thanks,
Robert