morland

Hi,

I have recently come across a # of articles/tips related to improving the computer's speed and a good number of these include disabling the Automatic creation of Restore Points.

Personally, I have come across a few occasions where the automatically created restore points have been of great help. However i understand that these eat up a good amount of hard disk space. Right?

Where are these restore points actually stored? Without disabling this feature (System Restore), is there a way/tool using which I can delete Restore Points created in the past and just keep the selected one's?

Will appreciate your reply.

Thanks.

techpro5238

Hi and welcome to TSF

Yes there is a possible way to do this, please follow these instructions:

Windows XP Professional using the NTFS File System on a Workgroup or Standalone Computer

In Windows Explorer click [Tools] [Folder Options]
Click the [View] tab, click [Show Hidden Files and Folders]
Clear [Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)] check box.
Click [Yes] on the change confirmation box and click [OK] to exit.
Right-click the System Volume Information folder in the root folder.
Click [Properties] and select the [Security] tab. Click [Add]
Enter the name of the user you are allowing access to the folder.
Click [OK], and then click [OK].
Double-click the System Volume Information folder to open.

Then go through the first folder you see by double clicking it. Then you will get into The folders and then you should be many blue folders and only one normal black colored folder. You may delete each restore point as you want.

justpassingby

@ techpro5238 : happy to see you've been accepted as an HJT trainee

Now, please don't use that method to remove restore points It will cause inconsistency in the restore points database and will prevent you to use any system restore point. You can't delete one restore point selectively.

source : Frequently Asked Questions Regarding System Restore in Windows XP

What you can do is right-click my computer => properties => system restore. For each drive other than the system drive, click settings and turn off system restore on that drive. For the system drive (probably c:) decrease the disk space to use and this will decrease the number of restore points (first in first out). Leave at least 1GB of space if you want to be able to go back several weeks in time.

You can also erase all system restore points except for the most recent one if you use disk cleanup : all programs => accessories => system tools => disk cleanup. Click the more options tab and the option will be there.

Another solution would be to use DriveImage or another backup software each time you install a new software and forget completely about system restore :
How to Backup your boot hard drive
But system restore shows its usefulness when there's some incompatibility with some of your software/hardware and one update from windows update as it would be tedious to create a new backup each time you install one update. I use DriveImage to make a monthly backup of my system drive an leave system restore running on my system drive with 1,5GB of space.

Here's a very interesting link with plenty of informations about the way system restore works and which settings you can tweak :
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/srarticles.html

morland

Hi guys,

Thanks for your replies. Will try to take it from here... might end up bothering you again if I get stuck.

Regards.