Maureen--
1) You can probably restore your taskbar with this fix from Kelly:
*The word restore has nothing to do with SR here--Kelly is using regedits
here.
She's done the work for you. Just download and run or run this.
Restore Taskbar and Start Menu (Line 117 left)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
Also see on the same site:
Taskbar Repair Tool Plus
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm
Parent site is a great XP resource with much information and don't miss A to
Z as resource:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp.htm
As for System Restore questions:
1) Why didn't it restore? The restore point or points you used may have
been corrupted. I always tell people to use every available
time-appropriate point you can. They get corrupted if it's turned off or if
someone does or is forced to do a "dirty shutdown" with programs still open
including the browser--IE or another one. So rather than think of this as
"it worked", it's not broken but the restore point you chose may be
corrupted. You could try others, but I think Kelly's fix is your best first
choice.
2) XP SP2 didn't give you an SR that's broken or compromised so don't
worrry that it did. That's not an SP2 issue. Before SP1 however, SR had a
problem that people weren't actually reaching restore points that the SR
team fixed in SP1. SP2 includes all the fixes and updates of SP1. I don't
think you can say that for some months SR isn't working--it's probably
setting restore points at the default time. If you want to test it, you can
set a restore point yourself and then use it, and you can then undo it.
Doing this little experiment won't harm you and takes very little time.
3) I don't think you gain anything by turning it off and clearing them out
because SR is going to do this anyway on a first in, first out. You're not
going to cleanse anything by purging it and you may have viable SR points
there you could need but it has 5 default reaons for making them. I would
remind you to look at this though: MSFT defaults SR to take up real-estate
that is 12% of your drive. That's way more than anyone should need, so if
you need space, or like most people don't realize to get a decent defrag you
need 15-20% or more free space than you might want to adjust your slider.
Where do I go to adjust System Restore? It's a *tab* on System Properties.
Fastest way to get the box up is to hit the Windows and the Pause/Break key
in the upper rt. corner of your key board or you can put "sysdm.cpl" (no
quotes) in the run box or go via the Control Panel.
hth,
Chad Harris
________________________________
Maureen Goldman said:
I had lost my taskbar and wanted to do a system restore and when I went to
go back a day, it goes through the motions and after reboot it then tells
me it was unable to restore....This is not the first time this has
happened. It's not working and I don't understand why. Is there something
in services that this is directly linked to that I may have shut off or
disabled? I know at one time it worked, but lately and my lately has been
some months now that it hasn't. I wanted to go back in time before as well
and I got the same message. Can anybody help me with this, sure would
appreciate it. I don't know now either if this is started happening before
sp2 or not.... should I go and turn it off and clear them all out since
it's not working anyway, and where do I do that, I have seen that as well
but can't remember where to find it...
This doesn't answer your question as stated, but I use Erdnt
(freeware, part of erunt.zip) for a secondary backup. It's saved my
bacon a couple of times:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt
)