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Windows 10 Restore Point Creator!!!

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MikeHawthorne

MikeHawthorne

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Hi

I don't know about everyone else but I find that Widows isn't very good at creating restore points where I sometimes wish I had one.

For years I've used a program that quickly creates a restore point with no hassles when ever I want one.
Installing some new program or installing some questionable drivers, create a restore point.

Want to backup your settings before you make changes, create a restore point.

Here's a link the the software that I'm using now...

Download Restore Point Creator 3.9 Build 3

It only takes a few seconds and it could save you hours later.

I've use restore points that I created manually many times over the years on may computers an operating systems.

Mike
 


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BIGBEARJEDI
Gary, Mike, et al;
This has been a problem for many folks. Gary, how much free space in GB do you have on your C: drive from that screenshot? MS does a thing that if you have less than 25% free space remaining on your C: drive, it will automatically delete Restore Points one at a time until it reaches the 25% free space size. This excludes the 22.51GB (5%) you show on your screenshot. This means that if your C: drive has 76% used, that the free space is at 24%, below the threshold and you must then subtract the 22.51GB from that 24% figure (on a 250GB drive say, 224GB usuable, where 24% free space is 53.76GB), then you subtract the reserved amount from that (53.76GB - 22.51GB = 31.25GB). Free space on the C: drive then drops to...
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Hi Mike! I've also noticed that W10 doesn't create restore points as often as I would like.
Great tip my friend! I've also noticed that restore points are deleted even though I have allowed plenty of free space.
Don't know what that's all about. I googled, but only heard others complaining and no solution.
This looks like a good solution or at least a way around this W10 problem for now.:worship:
 


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Hi Mike,
Thanks for posting this one.:D Never seen it before. Yes, on some computers, I've noticed that it takes FOREVER to get the Windows Create Restore Point to come up. In some cases, you have to do it in SAFE MODE, and as we all know that doesn't work on many computers for one reason and another, usually BIOS design issues.:scratch:

I've downloaded onto my Dell desktop and will play with it and post back my results after I've had a few machines to tinker with it on.:wink: I like the simple interface so far.

BBJ :brew: :usa:
 


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You still have to stay on top of it because Windows does seem to only keep them for a while.
Then they just vanish.

Mike
 


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MikeHawthorne said:
You still have to stay on top of it because Windows does seem to only keep them for a while.
Then they just vanish.

Mike
Click to expand...
Is that not strange my friend??"They just vanish"" I find that very strange Mike! You are right. They just vanish and I'm not liking that!
If I don't want them anymore, then I should be the one that deletes them, not MS!:angry_smile:
This is all I have left and I never manually deleted any restore points!
Capture48.webp
 


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I'm guessing that there is a setting someplace that lets you tell Windows not to remove old restore points but I've been too lazy to look for it.

Maybe that will be my project for today.

Mike
 


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Could be there is size limit and when it exceeds that it removes the oldest one?
 


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I usually go in and manually set my restore points instead of waiting for one to be created.
 


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Hi

I don't think it has to do with the size limit because I've had all my restore points disappear.
If I just wait they gradually seem to go one by one.

What I like about this app is that I can use it to see what restore points I have with just one click.

Link Removed
So I'm never caught without one.

In fact I haven't deleted any and I don't seem to have one older then 5/1/2016.
Only the first one was done by Windows, the other two I created.

Mike

How did you get to the System Protection Screen?
When I look for that "System Protection" I don't find anything, I spent 10 minutes searching through Settings and nothing but the system restore window comes up,
 


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Hi Mike! I type restore in search Orb. Create a restore point comes up. Click on that. Click on System restore!
 


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Hi

I didn't find the page where you turn system restore on and off before, I got to System Restore a dozen times. LOL

My System Restore was turned off, so I turned it on, we'll see what happens.

Mike
 


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I didn't mean it was a lack of disk space but a set amount allocated to the restore points. Not sure just a thought.
 


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I just increased the size limit. Doubt if that helps, but plenty of space now.;) I've heard lots of complaints about this. I think it's a W10 bug.
 


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I've been using Rollback Rx for years but I'm glad someone took it upon themselves to improve Windows System Restore. I'll likely still stick with Rollback but I'm really interested to test this in a VM :up:
 


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Gary, Mike, et al;
This has been a problem for many folks. Gary, how much free space in GB do you have on your C: drive from that screenshot? MS does a thing that if you have less than 25% free space remaining on your C: drive, it will automatically delete Restore Points one at a time until it reaches the 25% free space size. This excludes the 22.51GB (5%) you show on your screenshot. This means that if your C: drive has 76% used, that the free space is at 24%, below the threshold and you must then subtract the 22.51GB from that 24% figure (on a 250GB drive say, 224GB usuable, where 24% free space is 53.76GB), then you subtract the reserved amount from that (53.76GB - 22.51GB = 31.25GB). Free space on the C: drive then drops to 14.20%, WELL BELOW THE 25% THRESHOLD; so on a smaller hard drive, this example would cause Windows to start deleting Restore Points, since it's below that 25% free space threshold. o_O

[This next paragraph also deals with holdum's example from his screenshot.]

The other thing I know about Restore Points is that Windows cannot store any Restore Points going back more than 5 months previous to your most current Restore Point! This means that if you have one set today, May 11th 2016, all Restore Points on your C: drive prior to 5 months ago (Dec. 11th 2015) get automatically deleted by Windows!:eek: A lot of people are not aware of this. In your example screenshot from POST #5, you only go back 5 days, and you have the SHOW MORE RESTORE POINTS checked, so that's indeed odd. Are you sure that you didn't disable your SYSTEM RESTORE by disabling it manually around 10 days before (prior to 4/19/16)?? And then re-enabling it right around 4/19/16 where the first Restore Point is shown? If you're sure you didn't do that, then you need to check your total drive useable capacity against the free space and deduct the 5% Restore Point reservation figure and do the math to make certain you haven't violated the 25% free space threshold. If you do this and you've got somewhere between 30%-50% like I said, and you didn't manual disable the SYSTEM RESTORE option under the CONFIGURE button, the magically disappearing Restore Points are not coming from within Windows itself.

What also just occurred to me, is that I'm aware of certain viruses that go after SYSTEM RESTORE, and randomly delete all your Restore Points, one at a time.:mad: If you don't find and remove that virus, eventually you'll be left without the ability to general Restore Points using the Windows built-in program.:furious: You could use the Restore Point Creator program Mike suggests (am still trying that out), but don't know whether the virus would affect that program as well.

It might be worth it to rescan your W10 system again using your built-in AV, and MBAM, and also check for RootKits and Bootkits using TrendMicro tools. I run into this problem quite a bit with Client machines, and sometimes virus scanning and repair will find and delete these little nasties. And sometimes not. Intuitively, when I find a machine like yours and Mike's where there are only a couple of Restore Points left, and it's one I repaired say a year ago, so I know for a fact I always turn on System Restore, then I attempt to resolve that problem by running the virus scan process. If I see the machine in a few more weeks or months, and I see Restore points once again disappearing, it's likely that it could be a new mutated version of the viruses that attack System Restore and there's no antidote currently available *at least for a few days or weeks until the AV guys find it push out the antidote in their regular udpates*. At that point, I usually make the decision to do a Windows Reset or Reinstallation from factory Recovery Media or Partition and do a hard drive wipe; not just the OS partition, but the whole hard drive!:serious: This always seems to work, except for the rare occasion where I forgot to test the hard drive prior to the Reset/Reinstallation, and the drive itself is faulty.:redface:

I may know a thing or two more about this process than the average tech, as I was a Beta Tester for the old "GO-BACK" product in W95 & W98, which used to be a separate retail product that you could install on your PC to rollback your system if you damaged your windows or caught a virus, installed a bad driver, etc. The GO-BACK technology was originally purchased by Microsoft and is now called SYSTEM RESTORE. MS made a few changes to it over the last 20 years, but, it basically works the same now in W10, W8X, W7x, Vista, XP, etc. as it did then. You guys are old enough to probably remember this product and it's incorporation into Windows.

So, if your machines meet the limiting guidelines I outline above, and you check thoroughly for viruses (remember to Bootime Scan if you can!); and your Restore Points keep disappearing, something is awry with your W10 (or any version of Windows for that matter) and it needs to be repaired. [easier said than done:D.].

Cheers! :brew:
<BBJ> :usa:
 


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Hi friend! Thanks for all your suggestions. Without going into a lot detail, I'm aware of all your suggestions. I'm using 38 GB on a 500GB drive.
Plenty of free space. I really think this is a MS bug. There are a lot of W10 users on the web with this issue. I seldom use restore points and I'm always sure to create one before making any major changes. I always have Macrium Reflect to come to my rescue.;)
Thanks BBJ! Sorry I'm late replying:worship: Good reply and very informative.
 


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Hi

I just opened Restore Point Creator, to check to see if they were getting deleted.

A message popped up to upgrade the program with a message that said that they had solved the problem of Windows deleting the restore points even if you had enough space for them, and it would be fixed after doing the update.

I updated so now we'll just have to wait and see, it was obvious that it was still deleting them, when I viewed my list.

Mike
 


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Hi Mike & Gary:
Sorry getting back with you, Am running a Macrium restore for the guy with his broken weather gadget at the moment.

Mike: I saw that upgrade notice too, and the program author mentions that the W10 restore point problem in Windows is or was deleting restore points older than 19 days! He claims to have fixed that as you said, so I will try the upgrade as you did and well see how it goes. [emoji106] I do like the program and User interface BTW.

Marc

Sent from my VS986 using Windows Forums mobile app
 


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