System Restore is a new feature for Windows Me and Windows XP that saves the current state of the Operating System at specific points in time. So when a change to the operating system is made such as patch, update or device update is applied, it is possible to use System Restore to revert to a previous state before the change was made if the update went wrong and could not be uninstalled.
System Restore does NOT restore data files, it only affects the operating system or programs installed. If you want to restore data, then you must do regular data backups with a backup program such as NTBackup or some other third party program.
1. Start, Settings, Control Panel
2. Run the System Control Panel
3. Click on the System Restore tab
4. Untick the option to Turn off System Restore on all drives.
5. Below it should say Monitoring against each drive.
If you need to clear out all restore points, then tick the option to turn it
off, then reboot the PC to clear the database.
Then you can enable it again afterwards and start creating new restore points.
You cannot selectively delete specific
restore points.
1. Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools
2. Run System Restore (rstrui.exe)
3. You will have two options:
Restore the computer to an earlier time or Create a restore point.
4. To create a restore point, select it and then click Next.
5. Enter a description for your restore point (the date and time are automatically
added).
6. Click on Create to create your point. This will be shown if you need
to go back to it.
7. Then install the program, update or patch as normal.
8. If you need to go back to a restore point, run System restore again and select
the option to go
back to an earlier date, click Next.
9. A calendar is shown for the current month. If you want to go to previous
months click on the < (less than) arrow
next the Month and Year. If there is more than one restore point, click on the
< or > arrows on the right hand
panel.
10. Select the restore point you require and click Next and follow the
prompts.
11. Note if you made more than one change since the restore point, they will
be lost, so you may need to reapply
those changes again except the one that caused the problem.