System Restore - yea or nay?

[btvillarin]

I've just installed Windows XP today, and looking at various settings and stuff, I came across system restore. Now, my previous operating systems were Windows 98 and 2000. I use Drive Image to back up my image, and to restore Windows if a catastrophy occurs. But, should I use System Restore instead? I know it won't delete my data, but I keep it on a separate HD. Would it be better to just disable it and use Drive Image? If I should use System Restore, what percent should I designate for it?

Oh, the curiosities of a new operating system...

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[stable]

One major advantage of the system restore feature is it's calandering options for managing every change in your configuration. While there is some resource overhead from implementing System Restore functionality, we have found it to be a very fast, very stable solution for resolving problems, especially after installing either a troublesome device or new piece of software.

Having the ability to go back a month, or a day, or an hour is great. Further having the ability to return to where you were in the first place (before doing the restore) is a nice feature as well.

Typically, we leave the settings at the default with system restore enabled. The more resources you allocate for it, the further back you can go. You should make sure to identify exactly what it is that you want system restore to protect. In our case, we enable system restore to protect all files. In newer systems which usually have with big, fast ATA100 drives this has worked out well for us.

I would say it really depends on what you feel the most comfortable with. Using system restore is a much faster and more reliable solution than using most of the third party software if you find yourself going back and forth between different configurations. On average it takes less than two minutes or less to go backwards to an older configuration, you'll have to gauge that against the time it takes for any other system restore or recovery methodology.

Steve Benoit

Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'

 

[Palpatine]

I am new to XP and i find the Sys Restore a great feature. With so many programs not working as expected in WinXP you can roll back without a problem. I use XP for 4 days and i restored 5-6 times while in older versions windows would be ruined. The system restore in WinXp is making a back up when you upgrade or install a programm and so it does not eat up the resources of your system. In WinME the restore was taking images all the time and was slowing down the system. My advise is leave it enabled. It can do you only good.

 

[AMD_Man]

I've been using Windows XP for a little over a couple of weeks now and I can say that System Restore has been vastly improved over the version in Windows Me. It doesn't have as huge of an impact on performance as before. Plus it seems to fix more problems. I tried creating a resotre point before installing MS Office 2000 and erasing MS Office 2000 with the restore point. It worked!! Not a trace of Office was left and it didn't screw up the system like on Windows Me!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[btvillarin]

No kidding? Wow...how'd you check to see if any trace of Office 2K was left? (Plus, I thought Office 2000 wasn't compatible with Windows XP? Oh well.)

The people in the Anandtech forums are bagging on System Restore. They say it takes too many resources. I guess I just want to be able to go back, and not have traces of programs left over if they happen to be buggy. I guess I can enable it to it's max (I have WinXP on a 30GB HD), then use Drive Image to back it up to my 60GB HD. Then, I should be okay. Plus, if disaster occurs and they both die, then I'll probably follow suit. :lol:

Thanks for your input, guys! More posts??? It'd still be great to hear what others have to say about it...

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[AMD_Man]

Wow...how'd you check to see if any trace of Office 2K was left?

Ok, I admit I didn't check too much, but the main folder was gone. Microsoft Office 2000 is compatible with Windows XP. Why wouldn't it be? System Restore hardly hurts performance in Windows XP, it's significantly improved over Windows Me. In Windows Me, System Restore was slow and buggy, but now it's refined and more powerful.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor