XP system restore - cannot restore, so now what?

I very rarely use the system restore feature, but of course it's a
godsend when I do.

Last night, I inadvertantly cleaned up some desktop icons I didn't
wish to, so I figured I'd just do a restore to that morning's restore
point to put my desktop back the way it was.

So the standard stuff happened, then upon restart, I got the message
saying "Cannot restore. No changes have been made to your system"

The only "cure" I'm aware of for this is to disable system restore,
then re-enable it. Which is fine, but what if I really really really
needed a restoration?

Again, in this case, it's not a life or death thing; I was restoring
for a cosmetic fix.

Questions:

1. What causes system restores to not work? In my case, I can be very
sure it's not viruses or malware. I'm a safe computing person, and
the system is regularly cleanly scanned for such threats. The only
time I've ever seen this happen before was when I had a bad physical
sector on the disk of an older computer.

2. Is there a way to use the system restore data I have to somehow
"restore" my system, independent of the system restore utility?

3. Other than doing an occasional pointless "set a restore point, then
immediately restore to that point," is there any way to ensure that my
system restore capabilities are intact? Why doesn't XP warn that
something is wrong with this capability?

4. Any trick other than the disable system restore, then re-enable it,
that I can try to reinstitute system restore functionality?

Unfortunately System Restore has no Validate or integrity checks.

It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to Restore
to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must be valid.
Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable point will
be possible. SR is basically a short-term roll back and it's best to
only depend on a week to 10-days of points. There isn't a repair
feature so turning it off and back on is the way to "Reset it". Even
then there is no way to ensure that the points are usable.

<foobar5@home.com> wrote in message
news:d6dp645eqkt74718iprilooq77pt1npfq8@4ax.com...
>I very rarely use the system restore feature, but of course it's a
> godsend when I do.
>
> Last night, I inadvertantly cleaned up some desktop icons I didn't
> wish to, so I figured I'd just do a restore to that morning's restore
> point to put my desktop back the way it was.
>
> So the standard stuff happened, then upon restart, I got the message
> saying "Cannot restore. No changes have been made to your system"
>
> The only "cure" I'm aware of for this is to disable system restore,
> then re-enable it. Which is fine, but what if I really really really
> needed a restoration?
>
> Again, in this case, it's not a life or death thing; I was restoring
> for a cosmetic fix.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1. What causes system restores to not work? In my case, I can be very
> sure it's not viruses or malware. I'm a safe computing person, and
> the system is regularly cleanly scanned for such threats. The only
> time I've ever seen this happen before was when I had a bad physical
> sector on the disk of an older computer.
>
> 2. Is there a way to use the system restore data I have to somehow
> "restore" my system, independent of the system restore utility?
>
> 3. Other than doing an occasional pointless "set a restore point, then
> immediately restore to that point," is there any way to ensure that my
> system restore capabilities are intact? Why doesn't XP warn that
> something is wrong with this capability?
>
> 4. Any trick other than the disable system restore, then re-enable it,
> that I can try to reinstitute system restore functionality?

Try running system restore after booting into safe mode
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449

<foobar5@home.com> wrote in message
news:d6dp645eqkt74718iprilooq77pt1npfq8@4ax.com...
>I very rarely use the system restore feature, but of course it's a
> godsend when I do.
>
> Last night, I inadvertantly cleaned up some desktop icons I didn't
> wish to, so I figured I'd just do a restore to that morning's restore
> point to put my desktop back the way it was.
>
> So the standard stuff happened, then upon restart, I got the message
> saying "Cannot restore. No changes have been made to your system"
>
> The only "cure" I'm aware of for this is to disable system restore,
> then re-enable it. Which is fine, but what if I really really really
> needed a restoration?
>
> Again, in this case, it's not a life or death thing; I was restoring
> for a cosmetic fix.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1. What causes system restores to not work? In my case, I can be very
> sure it's not viruses or malware. I'm a safe computing person, and
> the system is regularly cleanly scanned for such threats. The only
> time I've ever seen this happen before was when I had a bad physical
> sector on the disk of an older computer.
>
> 2. Is there a way to use the system restore data I have to somehow
> "restore" my system, independent of the system restore utility?
>
> 3. Other than doing an occasional pointless "set a restore point, then
> immediately restore to that point," is there any way to ensure that my
> system restore capabilities are intact? Why doesn't XP warn that
> something is wrong with this capability?
>
> 4. Any trick other than the disable system restore, then re-enable it,
> that I can try to reinstitute system restore functionality?

In news:d6dp645eqkt74718iprilooq77pt1npfq8@4ax.com foobar5@home.com
wrote:

> I very rarely use the system restore feature, but of course it's a
> godsend when I do.
>
> Last night, I inadvertantly cleaned up some desktop icons I didn't
> wish to, so I figured I'd just do a restore to that morning's restore
> point to put my desktop back the way it was.

Is System Restore supposed to recover deleted files?

Isn't removing icons from your desktop simply deleting some files?

--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com

On 03 Jul 2008 12:22:01 GMT, Bert Hyman <bert@iphouse.com> wrote:

>Is System Restore supposed to recover deleted files?
>
>Isn't removing icons from your desktop simply deleting some files?
>
>--
>Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com

I've got the great PC Inspector File Recovery tool for recovering
deleted files. It's even pulled long-"deleted" files from my camera
memory cards.

For whatever reason, I used the desktop cleanup utility that was
bugging me about unused icons. I usually ignore it. It moves these
icons to an "unused icons" folder on the desktop. It's easy enough to
then "drag" them back, but I can't remember where some were and my
desktop just doesn't "look right" in terms of where these icons are.

So I'd hoped that if I did the system restore, I'd revert to the
desktop the way it had been.

On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:46:45 -0400, "R. McCarty"
<PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote:

>It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to Restore
>to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must be valid.
>Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable point will
>be possible.

I'd not known this.

If I *create* a restore point (versus the restore points XP
automatically creates), will that created restore point be full (and
thus usable pretty much no matter what), or will that also be
incremental?

The way you describe it, the most recent Restore point would have
the highest reliability since it alone is required to roll-back the system
state. To me the reliability decreases with each point ( or day ) back
in time you try to restore to.

System Restore is more of a remedy for the "Oh ****" type of
change where something is done and the change is immediately seen
as unwanted. I've seen SR move a system back by months, but it's
not something you'd want to depend on. System Imaging is a much
better approach to restoring a system to a previous setup.

<foobar5@home.com> wrote in message
news:lhip64d0h7g9d0h8sid3jf6f88vhhik82c@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 07:46:45 -0400, "R. McCarty"
> <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>It works much like an incremental backup. If you want to Restore
>>to Monday and it is Friday - all the interim points must be valid.
>>Once the chain is broken, no restores past the unusable point will
>>be possible.
>
> I'd not known this.
>
> If I *create* a restore point (versus the restore points XP
> automatically creates), will that created restore point be full (and
> thus usable pretty much no matter what), or will that also be
> incremental?

<foobar5@home.com> wrote in message
news:d6dp645eqkt74718iprilooq77pt1npfq8@4ax.com...
> I very rarely use the system restore feature, but of course it's a
> godsend when I do.
>
> Last night, I inadvertantly cleaned up some desktop icons I didn't
> wish to, so I figured I'd just do a restore to that morning's restore
> point to put my desktop back the way it was.
>
> So the standard stuff happened, then upon restart, I got the message
> saying "Cannot restore. No changes have been made to your system"
>
> The only "cure" I'm aware of for this is to disable system restore,
> then re-enable it. Which is fine, but what if I really really really
> needed a restoration?
>
> Again, in this case, it's not a life or death thing; I was restoring
> for a cosmetic fix.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1. What causes system restores to not work? In my case, I can be very
> sure it's not viruses or malware. I'm a safe computing person, and
> the system is regularly cleanly scanned for such threats. The only
> time I've ever seen this happen before was when I had a bad physical
> sector on the disk of an older computer.
>
> 2. Is there a way to use the system restore data I have to somehow
> "restore" my system, independent of the system restore utility?
>
> 3. Other than doing an occasional pointless "set a restore point, then
> immediately restore to that point," is there any way to ensure that my
> system restore capabilities are intact? Why doesn't XP warn that
> something is wrong with this capability?
>
> 4. Any trick other than the disable system restore, then re-enable it,
> that I can try to reinstitute system restore functionality?

Make sure any AV software is disabled before attempting system restore, if
you have Norton it's advisable to also remove the tick from 'turn on
protection for the Norton products.'

HTH,
Edna.

Is Norton AntiVirus installed?
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Desktop Experience - since 2002
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/

foobar5@home.com wrote:
> I very rarely use the system restore feature, but of course it's a
> godsend when I do.
>
> Last night, I inadvertantly cleaned up some desktop icons I didn't
> wish to, so I figured I'd just do a restore to that morning's restore
> point to put my desktop back the way it was.
>
> So the standard stuff happened, then upon restart, I got the message
> saying "Cannot restore. No changes have been made to your system"
>
> The only "cure" I'm aware of for this is to disable system restore,
> then re-enable it. Which is fine, but what if I really really really
> needed a restoration?
>
> Again, in this case, it's not a life or death thing; I was restoring
> for a cosmetic fix.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1. What causes system restores to not work? In my case, I can be very
> sure it's not viruses or malware. I'm a safe computing person, and
> the system is regularly cleanly scanned for such threats. The only
> time I've ever seen this happen before was when I had a bad physical
> sector on the disk of an older computer.
>
> 2. Is there a way to use the system restore data I have to somehow
> "restore" my system, independent of the system restore utility?
>
> 3. Other than doing an occasional pointless "set a restore point, then
> immediately restore to that point," is there any way to ensure that my
> system restore capabilities are intact? Why doesn't XP warn that
> something is wrong with this capability?
>
> 4. Any trick other than the disable system restore, then re-enable it,
> that I can try to reinstitute system restore functionality?

<foobar5@home.com> wrote in message
news:d6dp645eqkt74718iprilooq77pt1npfq8@4ax.com...
I very rarely use the system restore feature, but of course it's a
godsend when I do.

(snipped)

If you have downloaded a program and then you wish to do a restore to a
point before you installed that program, someone told me that you must
uninstall the program before activating the restore procedure. Else you will
get a "Cannot restore" message.
How true this is I cannot be sure .....
Paul