Restore = Au !

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.

FredW wrote:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:06:51 -0500, wrote:

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.

You are very lucky!

As nobody knows what System Restore saves or not saves, restores or not
restores, I switched of all System Restore.

Weekly I make image with Macrium Reflect Free.
Proven in practice, many times.
Much more reliable than the crappy MS system restore.


https://web.archive.org/web/20140212...tml/q_a.html#7

"Are System monitored files safe if located in User Documents Folders?

Unlike the My Documents folder in Windows XP, System Restore in Vista
does not exclude executable files in user Documents folders. One reason
is because programs and drivers (or spyware) can be installed anywhere,
not just under the C:\Program Files folder(s). Therefore, a specific
set of files are restored on all volumes where system protection is
enabled. On Windows Vista, this set of files is defined by monitored
extensions outside of the Windows folder, and everything under the
Windows folder."

And this page has the monitored extension set. TXT and DOC are not listed,
so you cannot rely on personal data being saved by this.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140129...redfilesv.html

While that's not an article for Windows 7, it hints at the
change in philosophy from the WinXP era. That MVP also has the
definitive info set for WinXP SR.

Paul

Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:23:16 +0100, FredW wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:06:51 -0500, wrote:

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.
You are very lucky!

As nobody knows what System Restore saves or not saves, restores or not
restores, I switched of all System Restore.

Weekly I make image with Macrium Reflect Free.
Proven in practice, many times.
Much more reliable than the crappy MS system restore.

A big +1 for turning off System Restore.


You should know how it works, if working on someone elses system,
because you know when you're reaching for that, it's because
they never did any backups :-/

And it's not generally considered worth using, when malware
is present. It seems to be really easy to infect.

Paul

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:57:54 -0500, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:23:16 +0100, FredW wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:06:51 -0500, wrote:

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.
You are very lucky!

As nobody knows what System Restore saves or not saves, restores or not
restores, I switched of all System Restore.

Weekly I make image with Macrium Reflect Free.
Proven in practice, many times.
Much more reliable than the crappy MS system restore.

A big +1 for turning off System Restore.


You should know how it works, if working on someone elses system,
because you know when you're reaching for that, it's because
they never did any backups :-/

And it's not generally considered worth using, when malware
is present. It seems to be really easy to infect.

I know how it works. That's why I turned it off. On every PC in the
house.

After all this time, I'm really surprised that neither MS nor any third
party that I'm aware of hasn't done any work to improve SR to the point
where it might actually be useful. Does Nirsoft have anything?

For example, how about a Test feature that checks various Restore Points
for basic validity, so that users don't have to try multiple restores
until they find one that works. The really important piece, of course,
would be a control panel that lets you see all of your restore points at
a glance, including their date of creation, and here's apparently the
hard part, when you click on one it would show you the delta between
your current config and what's in the Restore Point. It boggles my mind
that people are OK with applying an unknown *set* of changes to their PC
in the hopes that one specific issue will be resolved.


--

Char Jackson

I believe I've deleted any automatic restore point creation. I want to
restore only if and when I want.

After any significant change like an app addition, once things are
working perfectly, I delete all restore points, and create a new one.

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 09:49:16 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:

A big +1 for turning off System Restore.

Hear, hear!

--
s|b

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:06:51 -0500, wrote:

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.

Once of the first things I do on a new computer is turning SR off. In my
experience, it leaves a lot of crap behind. I'm much happier with
Macrium Reflect. It has saved me several times!

--
s|b

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 09:49:16 -0600, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:23:16 +0100, FredW wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:06:51 -0500, wrote:

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.

You are very lucky!

As nobody knows what System Restore saves or not saves, restores or not
restores, I switched of all System Restore.

Weekly I make image with Macrium Reflect Free.
Proven in practice, many times.
Much more reliable than the crappy MS system restore.

A big +1 for turning off System Restore.


I disagree with you very seldom, but I disagree about this.

I agree that it's not great, and it could be better. And I agree that
it doesn't solve every problem. But it does solve some problems much
more easily than most of the alternatives, and the cost of running it
is close to zero (just a little disk space).

In all the years that it's been available, I used it exactly once,
many years ago. And it easily solved the problem (don't ask me what
the problem was; it wasn't a malware infection, but I don't remember
what it was). So I always leave it on, just in case. I never know when
it might be worth trying.

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:57:54 -0500, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:23:16 +0100, FredW wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:06:51 -0500, wrote:

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.
You are very lucky!

As nobody knows what System Restore saves or not saves, restores or not
restores, I switched of all System Restore.

Weekly I make image with Macrium Reflect Free.
Proven in practice, many times.
Much more reliable than the crappy MS system restore.

A big +1 for turning off System Restore.


You should know how it works, if working on someone elses system,
because you know when you're reaching for that, it's because
they never did any backups :-/

I've no idea how effective it is against malware. However, where the
_user_ has broken something by changing something, I have - especially
on others' machines (where, as Paul says, backups were not made!) -
several times found it useful. Even where I _have_ done my Macrium
images, it's much _quicker_ to do a System Restore to see if that fixes
it.

And it's not generally considered worth using, when malware
is present. It seems to be really easy to infect.

I know how it works. That's why I turned it off. On every PC in the
house.

After all this time, I'm really surprised that neither MS nor any third
party that I'm aware of hasn't done any work to improve SR to the point
where it might actually be useful. Does Nirsoft have anything?

Well, Macrium, Acronis, Easeus (I think), and even the built-in
Windows Backup (I think that's what it's called) ... (-:

For example, how about a Test feature that checks various Restore Points
for basic validity, so that users don't have to try multiple restores
until they find one that works. The really important piece, of course,
would be a control panel that lets you see all of your restore points at
a glance, including their date of creation, and here's apparently the

Certainly the existing calendar-style presentation leaves a lot to be
desired.

hard part, when you click on one it would show you the delta between
your current config and what's in the Restore Point. It boggles my mind

It has that facility to a small extent, in that once you've picked your
RP, it offers to see what software might be affected - though that
doesn't always work. I presume the main reason it isn't made obvious is
that it takes an age.

that people are OK with applying an unknown *set* of changes to their PC
in the hopes that one specific issue will be resolved.


It also surprises me quite how much hatred it stirs up. I don't think
it's quite the gold that house Giannoni thinks it is, and it certainly
shouldn't _replace_ a proper imaging backup; but I don't see the harm in
it (and it _has_ sometimes fixed things for me, especially in cases
where the only alternative would be a full reinstall from scratch,
followed by the reinstallation of all software - two or three days' at
least solid work).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Grammar is there to help, not hinder."
-- Mark Wallace, APIHNA, 2nd December 2000 (quoted by John Flynn 2000-12-6)

On Sat, 10 Feb 2018 00:10:11 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:57:54 -0500, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:23:16 +0100, FredW wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:06:51 -0500, wrote:

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.
You are very lucky!

As nobody knows what System Restore saves or not saves, restores or not
restores, I switched of all System Restore.

Weekly I make image with Macrium Reflect Free.
Proven in practice, many times.
Much more reliable than the crappy MS system restore.

A big +1 for turning off System Restore.


You should know how it works, if working on someone elses system,
because you know when you're reaching for that, it's because
they never did any backups :-/

I've no idea how effective it is against malware. However, where the
_user_ has broken something by changing something, I have - especially
on others' machines (where, as Paul says, backups were not made!) -
several times found it useful. Even where I _have_ done my Macrium
images, it's much _quicker_ to do a System Restore to see if that fixes
it.

And it's not generally considered worth using, when malware
is present. It seems to be really easy to infect.

I know how it works. That's why I turned it off. On every PC in the
house.

After all this time, I'm really surprised that neither MS nor any third
party that I'm aware of hasn't done any work to improve SR to the point
where it might actually be useful. Does Nirsoft have anything?

Well, Macrium, Acronis, Easeus (I think), and even the built-in
Windows Backup (I think that's what it's called) ... (-:

C'mon, John, those are all [better] *alternatives* to SR. None of those
fixes what's wrong with SR. None of those things takes SR and moves it
forward to where it's actually useful and safe.

For example, how about a Test feature that checks various Restore Points
for basic validity, so that users don't have to try multiple restores
until they find one that works. The really important piece, of course,
would be a control panel that lets you see all of your restore points at
a glance, including their date of creation, and here's apparently the

Certainly the existing calendar-style presentation leaves a lot to be
desired.

hard part, when you click on one it would show you the delta between
your current config and what's in the Restore Point. It boggles my mind

It has that facility to a small extent, in that once you've picked your
RP, it offers to see what software might be affected - though that
doesn't always work. I presume the main reason it isn't made obvious is
that it takes an age.

For me, it wouldn't be enough to see a list of software that might be
affected by each RP. What does affected mean? What does it *exactly*
mean, on an application by application basis? We don't know, because MS
won't say.

I guess the argument will be that it's too hard to display that
information in a clear and meaningful way, and that users simply don't
care because they just want their PC to work again.

So in the meantime, I'll continue to disable this half-baked feature and
I'll let others carry on with it.

It also surprises me quite how much hatred it stirs up.

I feel pretty strongly about it, but it's more disdain than hatred. It's
a good idea in theory, but I don't think it should have been released in
its present form. I especially don't think it should *still* be in that
limited form after all of this time. Like much of what MS does, it's a
half-hearted attempt to do something, released too early, then allowed
to wither with neglect. SR has been available for something like a
decade now, so there's very little excuse for it to still be such a poor
implementation.

I'm surprised that there isn't a better front end for it, for starters.
If you're having a problem with application X that you can't fix by
conventional means, why doesn't SR allow you to specify that app X needs
to be repaired, and *only* app X, and then provide you with a list of
dated RPs that *only* affect app X? RPs that don't affect app X wouldn't
even be shown in that view. Next, instead of applying an entire RP, just
apply the portion that affects the application that you've identified.
Heck, make it an Advanced option if the newbs and rubes would find it
confusing, but the current approach simply falls short, IMHO. You're
forced to apply a set of changes in the hopes that one of those changes
will fix an issue that you're having. No, thanks.

--

Char Jackson

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 15:30:35 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 09:49:16 -0600, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:23:16 +0100, FredW wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:06:51 -0500, wrote:

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.

You are very lucky!

As nobody knows what System Restore saves or not saves, restores or not
restores, I switched of all System Restore.

Weekly I make image with Macrium Reflect Free.
Proven in practice, many times.
Much more reliable than the crappy MS system restore.

A big +1 for turning off System Restore.


I disagree with you very seldom, but I disagree about this.


I know, we've discussed it before. :-) No biggie.

--

Char Jackson

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 19:40:11 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:

I guess the argument will be that it's too hard to display that
information in a clear and meaningful way, and that users simply
don't care because they just want their PC to work again.

Yes, for most people that would be far too 'techie' to be useful,
probably leading to confusion so people might give up in
desperation.

On Sat, 10 Feb 2018 00:10:11 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:57:54 -0500, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 16:23:16 +0100, FredW wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:06:51 -0500, wrote:

I've been saved by System Restore more times than I care to remember.
One case where M$ had a very great idea. Worth it's weight in Gold.
You are very lucky!

As nobody knows what System Restore saves or not saves, restores or not
restores, I switched of all System Restore.

Weekly I make image with Macrium Reflect Free.
Proven in practice, many times.
Much more reliable than the crappy MS system restore.

A big +1 for turning off System Restore.


You should know how it works, if working on someone elses system,
because you know when you're reaching for that, it's because
they never did any backups :-/

I've no idea how effective it is against malware. However, where the
_user_ has broken something by changing something, I have - especially
on others' machines (where, as Paul says, backups were not made!) -
several times found it useful. Even where I _have_ done my Macrium
images, it's much _quicker_ to do a System Restore to see if that fixes
it.



Yes, my point exactly. It's usually worth a try. If it doesn't work,
you can then use Macrium.

On Sat, 10 Feb 2018 00:10:11 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
It also surprises me quite how much hatred it stirs up. I don't think
it's quite the gold that house Giannoni thinks it is, and it certainly
shouldn't _replace_ a proper imaging backup; but I don't see the harm in
it (and it _has_ sometimes fixed things for me, especially in cases
where the only alternative would be a full reinstall from scratch,
followed by the reinstallation of all software - two or three days' at
least solid work).


Well said.

Like you, I find it useful to fix a problem of installing something
that turned out to create problems, when either it couldn't be
uninstalled or uninstalling didn't fix the problems. (An update of
Avast comes to mind.)

I haven't tried it to undo Windows updates, but I suspect it would be
helpful there too.



--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sat, 10 Feb 2018 12:39:59 +0000, mechanic
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 19:40:11 -0600, Char Jackson wrote:

I guess the argument will be that it's too hard to display that
information in a clear and meaningful way, and that users simply
don't care because they just want their PC to work again.

Yes, for most people that would be far too 'techie' to be useful,
probably leading to confusion so people might give up in
desperation.

They'd have to hide that functionality behind an Advanced button, but
that would be better than not having that functionality at all. The
current all or nothing approach isn't granular enough and doesn't
provide visibility into the changes that are going to be made.

--

Char Jackson