I would like to put my computer through a full system restore. However when
i try to do so, the furthest point back my computer has for a restore point
is only a few months back. I would like to go about 2 years back to right
out of the box settings. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to go about
doing this?
System Restore is a tool for restoring the operating system to the
state it was a few days (or a week or two at most) ago. It's meant to
be a quick and easy way to recover from an error you made recently. In
practice you can seldom go back more than a week or two, because any
more than that and your registry gets out of synch with everything
else.
There is also has a maximum of 90 days you can go back (and that's
really way too much, for the reason above).
So if you want to put the computer back to factory-delivered
condition, System Restore is *not* the tool to use. You need to
reinstall Windows cleanly. Note that that means the loss of
*everything* on the drive, so you will need to first back up all your
data. Then after Windows reinstallation you will need to restore your
data backups and reinstall all your programs.
How to reinstall Windows cleanly depends on what came with the
computer. Do you have a Windows installation CD? A recovery CD?
Neither? Tell us which you have for more information on how to
proceed.
However why do you want to do this? In my view, it's usually a
mistake. With a modicum of care, it should never be necessary to
reinstall Windows (XP or any other version). I've run Windows 3.0,
3.1, WFWG 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP,
each for the period of time before the next version came out, and each
on two machines here. I never reinstalled any of them, and I have
never had anything more than an occasional minor problem.
It's my belief that this mistaken notion stems from the technical
support people at many of the larger OEMs. Their solution to almost
any problem they don't quickly know the answer to is "reformat and
reinstall." That's the perfect solution for them. It gets you off the
phone quickly, it almost always works, and it doesn't require them to
do any real troubleshooting (a skill that most of them obviously don't
possess in any great degree).
But it leaves you with all the work and all the problems. You have to
restore all your data backups, you have to reinstall all your
programs, you have to reinstall all the Windows and application
updates,you have to locate and install all the needed drivers for your
system, you have to recustomize Windows and all your apps to work the
way you're comfortable with.
Besides all those things being time-consuming and troublesome, you may
have trouble with some of them: can you find all your application CDs?
Can you find all the needed installation codes? Do you have data
backups to restore? Do you even remember all the customizations and
tweaks you may have installed to make everything work the way you
like? Occasionally there are problems that are so difficult to solve
that Windows should be reinstalled cleanly. But they are few and far
between; reinstallation should not be a substitute for
troubleshooting; it should be a last resort, to be done only after all
other attempts at troubleshooting by a qualified person have failed.
Moreover, if you currently have a problem, and reinstall Windows to
solve the problem, you never find out what caused it, and will likely
quickly repeat the behavior that caused it, putting you back right
where you started.
If you have problems, post them here; it's likely that someone can
help you and a reinstallation won't be required.
