Space reserved for System Restore files

Back in the XP days, the amount of recommended space for System Restore
was 15% of the hard drive size.

I've been looking for some similar recommendations for newer system,
especially since W10 has System Restore off as the default. But I've
found none.

Looking for thoughts and suggestions.



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 44.0
Thunderbird 38.0.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 2/29/2016 9:20 PM, Ken Springer wrote:
Back in the XP days, the amount of recommended space for System Restore
was 15% of the hard drive size.

I've been looking for some similar recommendations for newer system,
especially since W10 has System Restore off as the default. But I've
found none.

Looking for thoughts and suggestions.




I leave mine set at 15%, which seems to give me plenty of restore
points, Too old points are not of much value anyway.

Regards, Rene

On 2/29/16 8:38 PM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2/29/2016 9:20 PM, Ken Springer wrote:
Back in the XP days, the amount of recommended space for System Restore
was 15% of the hard drive size.

I've been looking for some similar recommendations for newer system,
especially since W10 has System Restore off as the default. But I've
found none.

Looking for thoughts and suggestions.




I leave mine set at 15%, which seems to give me plenty of restore
points, Too old points are not of much value anyway.

Regards, Rene

But 15% of a 1TB drive is a lot different than 15% of a 250GB drive.
The only thing that has any meaning is a fixed number.

I've not done any testing as Paul may have done, but it's logical that
the amount of space needed to have X number of restore points will be
dependent on the amount of data SR has to deal with.



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 44.0
Thunderbird 38.0.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 02/03/2016 02:09, Ken Springer wrote:
But 15% of a 1TB drive is a lot different than 15% of a 250GB drive. The
only thing that has any meaning is a fixed number.

I guess the idea is that a big drive is likely to have more stuff
installed on it which will sometimes get updated and might need to be
restored if things go wrong.

--

Brian Gregory (in the UK).
To email me please remove all the letter vee from my email address.

On 3/2/16 1:17 PM, Brian Gregory wrote:
On 02/03/2016 02:09, Ken Springer wrote:
But 15% of a 1TB drive is a lot different than 15% of a 250GB drive. The
only thing that has any meaning is a fixed number.

I guess the idea is that a big drive is likely to have more stuff
installed on it which will sometimes get updated and might need to be
restored if things go wrong.

But most likely all that extra stuff is your personal stuff in
downloads, documents, etc. which should be unaffected, AIUI.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 44.0
Thunderbird 38.0.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 03/02/2016 06:53 PM, Ken Springer wrote:
On 3/2/16 1:17 PM, Brian Gregory wrote:
On 02/03/2016 02:09, Ken Springer wrote:
But 15% of a 1TB drive is a lot different than 15% of a 250GB drive.
The
only thing that has any meaning is a fixed number.

I guess the idea is that a big drive is likely to have more stuff
installed on it which will sometimes get updated and might need to be
restored if things go wrong.

But most likely all that extra stuff is your personal stuff in
downloads, documents, etc. which should be unaffected, AIUI.


I hadthe same question about my space, and I just simply wiped all
restore points, madea new one and then looked at how much space it
consumer with just that one restore point. 750M. So I can say 10
restore points is 7.5 Gig or 20 is 15G. Pick your happy spot and set it
there.

--
Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon 64bit

Ken Springer wrote:
Back in the XP days, the amount of recommended space for System Restore
was 15% of the hard drive size.

I've been looking for some similar recommendations for newer system,
especially since W10 has System Restore off as the default. But I've
found none.

Looking for thoughts and suggestions.



SR is off the default in Win10.
The primary reason - with Win10 providing major o/s updates[currently on
the second update(aka 1511)with the 3rd(16xx)expected to be released
this summer]any prior SR point becomes useless after an o/s update.

i.e. if enabling System Restore make a note to reset it after each and
every major update. In fact, it may be appropriate to wipe all SR points
and disable prior to installing a major Win10 update and only before
creating an image of the System and Boot Volume(Win10's System Image and
o/s partitions).


--
....winston
msft mvp windows experience

On 2/29/2016 11:23 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
SR is off the default in Win10.
The primary reason - with Win10 providing major o/s updates[currently on
the second update(aka 1511)with the 3rd(16xx)expected to be released
this summer]any prior SR point becomes useless after an o/s update.

i.e. if enabling System Restore make a note to reset it after each and
every major update. In fact, it may be appropriate to wipe all SR points
and disable prior to installing a major Win10 update and only before
creating an image of the System and Boot Volume(Win10's System Image and
o/s partitions).

So... one wipes all SR points, installs the major Win10 update that
screws up their system (again), and then what???

--
Best regards,

Neil

Neil wrote:
On 2/29/2016 11:23 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
SR is off the default in Win10.
The primary reason - with Win10 providing major o/s updates[currently on
the second update(aka 1511)with the 3rd(16xx)expected to be released
this summer]any prior SR point becomes useless after an o/s update.

i.e. if enabling System Restore make a note to reset it after each and
every major update. In fact, it may be appropriate to wipe all SR points
and disable prior to installing a major Win10 update and only before
creating an image of the System and Boot Volume(Win10's System Image and
o/s partitions).

So... one wipes all SR points, installs the major Win10 update that
screws up their system (again), and then what???

The SR point is of no value after a major update(the version and build
are new)
- restore using a user created image or the Win10 Recovery
options(Reset, Advanced, or Go back to an earlier build)

--
....winston
msft mvp windows experience

On 3/1/2016 2:51 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
Neil wrote:
On 2/29/2016 11:23 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
SR is off the default in Win10.
The primary reason - with Win10 providing major o/s updates[currently on
the second update(aka 1511)with the 3rd(16xx)expected to be released
this summer]any prior SR point becomes useless after an o/s update.

i.e. if enabling System Restore make a note to reset it after each and
every major update. In fact, it may be appropriate to wipe all SR points
and disable prior to installing a major Win10 update and only before
creating an image of the System and Boot Volume(Win10's System Image and
o/s partitions).

So... one wipes all SR points, installs the major Win10 update that
screws up their system (again), and then what???

The SR point is of no value after a major update(the version and build
are new)
- restore using a user created image or the Win10 Recovery
options(Reset, Advanced, or Go back to an earlier build)

Interesting. "System Restore" and "Go back to an earlier build" seems
semantically identical to me. What is being "restored" if it isn't the OS?

--
Best regards,

Neil

Neil wrote:
On 3/1/2016 2:51 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
Neil wrote:
On 2/29/2016 11:23 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
SR is off the default in Win10.
The primary reason - with Win10 providing major o/s
updates[currently on
the second update(aka 1511)with the 3rd(16xx)expected to be released
this summer]any prior SR point becomes useless after an o/s update.

i.e. if enabling System Restore make a note to reset it after each and
every major update. In fact, it may be appropriate to wipe all SR
points
and disable prior to installing a major Win10 update and only before
creating an image of the System and Boot Volume(Win10's System Image
and
o/s partitions).

So... one wipes all SR points, installs the major Win10 update that
screws up their system (again), and then what???

The SR point is of no value after a major update(the version and build
are new)
- restore using a user created image or the Win10 Recovery
options(Reset, Advanced, or Go back to an earlier build)

Interesting. "System Restore" and "Go back to an earlier build" seems
semantically identical to me. What is being "restored" if it isn't the OS?


System Restore keeps 3GB (or more) of files in System Volume Information folder.
It keeps deltas for a wide range of areas of the partition.

The "revert" capability of a Windows OS Upgrade install, relies
on 20GB (the entire Windows folder) stored as C:\Windows.old .
It's not nearly the same mechanism, and doesn't have nearly
the same coverage. An OS Upgrade installer can mess with stuff
outside C:\Windows , to the detriment of the user.

If an OS Upgrade were tracked by System Restore, the SVI folder
would need to hold 20GB of stuff. The time to revert, would
be quite quite long, longer than renaming C:\Windows.old to
C:\Windows.

One difference is, System Restore would fix some Program Files
damage, whereas a Windows OS Upgrade doesn't track what it
has done to the Program Files folder, and makes no attempt
to undo the damage it caused there.

Paul

Neil wrote:
On 3/1/2016 2:51 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
Neil wrote:
On 2/29/2016 11:23 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
SR is off the default in Win10.
The primary reason - with Win10 providing major o/s
updates[currently on
the second update(aka 1511)with the 3rd(16xx)expected to be released
this summer]any prior SR point becomes useless after an o/s update.

i.e. if enabling System Restore make a note to reset it after each and
every major update. In fact, it may be appropriate to wipe all SR
points
and disable prior to installing a major Win10 update and only before
creating an image of the System and Boot Volume(Win10's System Image
and
o/s partitions).

So... one wipes all SR points, installs the major Win10 update that
screws up their system (again), and then what???

The SR point is of no value after a major update(the version and build
are new)
- restore using a user created image or the Win10 Recovery
options(Reset, Advanced, or Go back to an earlier build)

Interesting. "System Restore" and "Go back to an earlier build" seems
semantically identical to me. What is being "restored" if it isn't the OS?

System Restore
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...restore-change

Go back to an earlier build returns 'everything' to the condition that
existed prior to the major o/s upgrade.

As other's have noted, if a need to GoBack is warranted the safer route
would always be to use an image created prior to the upgrade using the
Windows included tools or 3rd party imaging software(Acronis True Image
2016, Macrium Reflect or another 3rd party tool). If you've not created
an image, now would be a good time to investigate the available tools(in
Windows or 3rd party ware).

--
....winston
msft mvp windows experience

Neil wrote:
On 2/29/2016 11:23 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
SR is off the default in Win10.
The primary reason - with Win10 providing major o/s updates[currently on
the second update(aka 1511)with the 3rd(16xx)expected to be released
this summer]any prior SR point becomes useless after an o/s update.

i.e. if enabling System Restore make a note to reset it after each and
every major update. In fact, it may be appropriate to wipe all SR points
and disable prior to installing a major Win10 update and only before
creating an image of the System and Boot Volume(Win10's System Image and
o/s partitions).

So... one wipes all SR points, installs the major Win10 update that screws up their system
(again), and then what???

SR's won't be of any value since they would not apply to what is effectively a new O/S.
Clone or image prior to major upgrades.

On 3/1/2016 8:35 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Neil wrote:
On 2/29/2016 11:23 PM, ...winston‫ wrote:
SR is off the default in Win10.
The primary reason - with Win10 providing major o/s updates[currently on
the second update(aka 1511)with the 3rd(16xx)expected to be released
this summer]any prior SR point becomes useless after an o/s update.

i.e. if enabling System Restore make a note to reset it after each and
every major update. In fact, it may be appropriate to wipe all SR points
and disable prior to installing a major Win10 update and only before
creating an image of the System and Boot Volume(Win10's System Image and
o/s partitions).

So... one wipes all SR points, installs the major Win10 update that
screws up their system
(again), and then what???

SR's won't be of any value since they would not apply to what is
effectively a new O/S.
Clone or image prior to major upgrades.

I was making a point about the increasing amount of unpredictable
down-time that is being foisted on businesses by Win10's update
policies. The reality is that a lot of the hardware and applications
that businesses depend on are *way* behind even Windows 8.1. Unless one
can indefinitely delay (if not completely avoid) those updates cloning
and imaging will not help.

--
Best regards,

Neil

Neil wrote:
On 3/1/2016 8:35 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Neil wrote:

I was making a point about the increasing amount of unpredictable down-time that is being
foisted on businesses by Win10's update policies. The reality is that a lot of the
hardware and applications that businesses depend on are *way* behind even Windows 8.1.
Unless one can indefinitely delay (if not completely avoid) those updates cloning and
imaging will not help.

Ahh.. I see. Yah, there is a big difference between business and non-business.
The posters here (including me) mostly discuss home or small business uses.
My employer has somewhere over 1000 computers, 1/4 servers, 1/4 floor models,
with the remainder being laptops and embedded systems.
AFAIK, all the floor and lap versions run W7/64.
It's unlikely that we will ever go W10.