System Restore

One of the IT guys at work recommended turning off System Restore to keep viruses and such hiding in the computer. After looking at some of the stuff here, that sounds like bad advice. Can anyone give some input to help others with minimal knowledge. I like to educate myself when possible. Thanks to all in here that help, you do great service!

 

Halo,

Thanks for your reply. It just makes good sense to leave it active. When the IT guy was telling me all this it didn't make good sense, novice users need all the help we can get. Of course, he has the resources to get himself out of trouble, or maybe he calls you guys. Thanks again for all your help!

 

I agree that it is not sensible for people who lack other means of recovery to turn off System Restore. In fact it is downright bad advice.

However System Restore, while very useful in many situations, has its own limitations and would not enable the user to recover from more serious system or hardware faults. That needs another type of tool.

I recommend you to think about acquiring a disk imaging system. There are a great many on the market, but the best known and most widely used is Acronis True Image, and that is the one I would recommend as it is well supported by an excellent user forum not dissimilar to MG, just more focussed.

 

Thanks Earthling. I do have a external hard drive that has been imaged from when I upgraded to a larger hard drive using Acronis. I just love good advice. Everyone keep up the good work!

 

I have only been using a computer a few years, being an older gal,and not having the benefit of having it when I was in school, and I too was told to turn off system restore. Thank God I didn't as it has saved my bacon many times, as my learning has been by trial and error, and it has corrected the error part alot. Every now and then when I know the computer is in real good shape I'll delete the restore points to gain memory space,then immediately go and create a new restore point for that day. sheena

 

Let's keep it going, the more responses, the more all of us will learn. I love this place.

 

I just turn mine down to 3% of hard disk space to conserve space and still be able to have a few save points to fall back on.

 

I use the system restore along with disk imaging using (Acronis). The only problem I find is that you have to have a disk big enough to hold your image and it cannot be the same hard drive; I much rather a hard drive than a CD, it seems to just make it easier to restore. Still, I like to use imaging and the system restore because at times malware can insert itself in the system restore and thereby you always have it. Clearing out the system restore from time to time is another practice I use and then create new restore points.

In using the Acronis I actually have two disk images. One of them is the original that if all else fails go back to what you know. The other is an original but with incremental backups. So for me, this is why the additional hard drive needs to be a little bit large.

as for using the system restore, I think it's best to use it especially if you do not have other means of restoring your system.

 

Thanks for all the good advice.