Asim--
David's post reminded me of something I should have said. You have some
flexibility as to *how often* certain restore points are created, and some
other system restore parameters, and you can control this to an extent with
SR registry key edits.
See:
The Registry Keys and Values for the System Restore Utility
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;295659&Product=winxp
This information is from Jim Boyce's excellent book: *Windows XP Power
Tools*
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/078214067X/102-4148723-4646546?v=glance
A restore point is created the first time you boot after XP installation.
Thereafter points are created as David said, plus at these events:
Install of Windows Updates
When you perform a restore operation
Install of unsigned device drivers
Use of the MSI (Windows Installer) or Install Shield to install a program
You should reflexly create a restore point when you install significant
applications, drivers, when you try different drivers, when you install
programs that don't use the MSI or Install Shield, or try any program or
move that makes you think whether you should create a restore point. It's a
quick protectie move, and a good one. Just put "restore" in your run box
and click on "rstrui" and it's up and ready to roll.
You can create more restore points automatically with value changes in this
key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\ System Restore
RPGlobalInterval: A DWORD value specifying the number of seconds that SR
waits before creating an automatic restore point bsed on a calendar date.
The default setting is 86,400 seconds (24 hours). You can titrate the
seconds.
RPSessionInterval A DWORD value specifying the number of seconds that SR
waits before creating an automatic restore point based on system uptime.
The default setting is 0 seconds which switches this function off.
By default, restore points are kept 90 days, and then automatically deleted.
IF SR grows to occupy more than 90% of available storage space before that,
it delets the oldest restore points so that it has 25% of remaing restore
available space free for creating restore points.
If you select SR in disk cleanup, XP purges all restore points but the
latest.
To change the length of time that restore points are kept, adjust the
RPLifeInterval value entry in the SR key. The default setting is 7,776,000
seconds (90 days).
If the system drive has less than 200 MBof free space or a non-system drive
less than 50MB, SR is suspended when a file it's tracking is modified,
copied, or deleted. This suspension applies to all of the disks, not just
the one short of space. When you free 200MB of space on the system disk or
50MB on the non-system disk, either wait 15 minutes for SR to notice and
restart itself or you can go to Start>run> or windows key + r and in the run
box type "restore" and then select "rstrui" and SR will then start
immediately.
Win XP doesn't preserve SR settings if you reinstall XP or do an upgrade
from Windows XP from Home Edition to Professional. However, I have seen it
preserve restore settings on an inplace/upgrade or "repair" install. That
is not a guarantee nor is restoring all your settings and data, but you have
an excellent chance.
It's just my opinion, but I seen a number of boxes where people complain
they need more hard drive space (this is becoming less of a problem as they
are manufactured larger), and they could gain valuable real estate by moving
that SR slider over to less than 12%. How or why the SR team arbitrarily
chose such a large number is difficult to understand. Also although in
theory SR defaults to 90 days of restore points, for whatever reasons, I
have never seen this many.
Improper ("dirty") shutdowns can corrupt restore points, and that is always
an incentive not to have them when shutdown is elective.
Shutdown May Affect System Restore
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;283096&Product=winxp
Chad Harris
___________________________________________________________________________________
Hello... I was wondering if there was a way to disable automatic restore
point generation, yet be able to generate custome restore points... Like the
restore points XP automatically creates when you install new software or
simply when it feels like... Turning off system restore completely deletes
all restore points... Can somebody guide me? A manual method or a way around
would do as well...
