System Restore question

funny enough yes if you have a virus or spyware then its most likely that they will be stored in a SR point and at next boot as SR restores you PC back to a last known good point, which would then restore the nasty!

But I personally only turn off SR if my AV/antispyware told me I had a virus/trojan etc

 

These are just things I personally do and others may do different,

Not really needed but you can do ( or see my footnote ), turning off System Restore and rebooting to remove all restore points helps minimize restoring a virus and as most if not all AVs dont clear virus/trojans out of the restore points, thats a good thing and one of the first steps in removing virii/spyware.

as was pointed out and I didnt make myself too clear... A roll back to a previous System Restore point would need to be initiated by you and wouldnt automatically happen at just any reboot.

This is what I would do personally if it helps any JoeN, I run the usual antispyware and virus checks periodically, now if I was to find any virus or spyware ( which suprisingly I have never had in many years on the net ) I would then take note of the name and look up any removal instructions, download any removal tools and print the instructions out, as many have changes to the registry you'd need to do.

Then turn off SR and reboot, then run my updated AV or AntiSpyware and see if they will automatically remove the nasty, if they do then re-boot again and check again ( also with an online scan for a 2nd opinion ), then re-boot and check manual instructions ( if any available )... re-boot scan again if not their and no ill effects are being seen then ok, re-enable System Restore and carry on.

if not then post in Spyware forum for expert help



footnote:
One thing I do do every month is to delete all but the last restore point, using Disk Cleanup after I have done a AV/Spyware check and cleaned all the junk out of my pc using CCleaner or similar. Also I have adjusted the restore size used on my HD to 1% as thats plenty for a few SR points, I personally dont personally see the point of having months of SR points as too many things on my PC will have changed and I do backup my PC using Acronis True Image, so have a rolling 3 weekly restore images.