by Greg Schwartz

Created on: July 02, 2009   Last Updated: September 11, 2009

Ever wish you could "save your game" in real life? Then, if something bad happened, you could just restore back to the point where you saved, and the bad thing would never have happened.

Unfortunately, you can't do that. But your computer can.

System Restore is a feature that comes with current versions of Windows, allowing the computer to take a snapshot of its configuration and settings in case it ever needs to revert back to them. The snapshot is called a restore point, and you can have multiple restore points saved at one time.

Restore points are very nice to have when bad things happen. Sometimes your system can become unstable, crashing at random times or running extremely slowly for no apparent reason. If you can figure out the cause (which is often a newly-installed device or program) you can fix the issue, but if you can't find an apparent reason for the crashes or drop in performance, a good next step is using system restore.

By activating your saved restore point, you're effectively telling your computer to change all of its settings (and installed programs) back to the way they were when the restore point was created.

Note that if you installed a program such as Microsoft Office that required an activation key, and then you restore to a point before Office was installed, you may have to reactivate the program, even though the program's files are still saved on the hard drive - it doesn't erase the files, it just doesn't recognize the program as being installed.

New data (files that have been created or modified since the restore point was set) may also be affected; the data is still physically present, but the path might have changed slightly (especially if you have defragmented your hard drive since then) and the files may be hard to find.

You can create a restore point any time you want. In Windows XP, System Restore can be accessed through the Start menu (All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore). Once System Restore launches, you can use it to either create a new restore point, or load a previously saved one.

Windows will occasionally create its own restore points, but if you're doing something that you think might affect system stability (such as installing new hardware or software) it's a good idea to create a restore point beforehand.

System Restore settings can be accessed by right-clicking on My Computer, selecting Properties, and going to the System Restore tab. From here you can change the amount of disk space allocated for restore points, as well as enable or disable the System Restore feature. If you disable System Restore at any time, any previously-saved restore points will be erased. If you're trying to save hard drive space, reduce the amount of space Windows reserves for restore points, and delete some of the old restore points you no longer need.

System Restore won't fix every problem. If your computer has a virus, it's best to try to eliminate the virus rather than loading a restore point. There are many registry-mutating viruses that can hide in already-created restore points (or create their own) so that if you run System Restore, the virus can re-load itself back into your system.

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