Several readers have written to say that their System
Restore feature has stopped working, sometimes after
installing updates. The first thing to try is stopping
and restarting the service. To do this, open the Services
node from the Computer Management console (right click My
Computer and select Manage. Expand Services and
Applications and click Services). In the right pane,
scroll down to System Restore Service. Right click,
select Stop. After the service has stopped, right click
again and select Start.
If this doesn't work, you might have to reinstall System
Restore. Here's how:
First ensure that all hidden files and folders are
displayed (in Windows Explorer, click Tools | Folder
Options | View tab, and click the option button that
says "Show hidden files and folders." Uncheck "Hide
protected operating system files." Uncheck "Hide
extensions for known file types").
In Windows Explorer, navigate to the Windows folder where
you installed XP (by default, C:\Windows). Click the Inf
folder.
Scroll down to locate the sr.inf file. Right click it and
select Install (you might be asked to insert the XP
installation CD or point to the i386 installation folder
on the hard disk).
Note that this procedure will destroy any restore points
you made previously, but if System Restore isn't working,
you can't use them anyway.
