System Restore

[Compass Call]

Last night I tried to use system restore but it did not work. It went through the motions and after the computer restarted I got a message saying "Your computer cannot be restored - no changes have been made".

I chose another restore point and tried again - same result.

I tried several restore points, all with the same result. I have checked the settings and they appear to be OK. In the windows restore calender there are various restore points and system check points so it looks like it is working, except it won't restore the computer.

Has anybody any idea what might be wrong?

CC

[Saab Dastard]

There's a known problem with Norton / Symantec products and both Vista and XP - are you using Norton / Symantec?

Norton Product Protection (Symantec Resource Protection) causes the problem - see the Symantec website for details / workarounds.

If it's not that, I can only suggest a search for

"Your computer cannot be restored" "no changes have been made" on the MS site or Google.

SD

[Compass Call]

I am using Win XP home with all updates. Also AVG 8.

CC

[Oilandgasman]

I use XP and Norton 360 and have the same problem. Try
Message: "Restoration Incomplete. Your computer cannot be restored . . . " when you run Windows System Restore with a Norton 2008 product installed (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/norton2008.nsf/0/fa8500b78e0a207b6525738e006ca954?OpenDocument&seg=hm&lg=en&ct=uk)

[NRU74]

Is one of your Windows/XP updates a very recent update ?
The reason I couldn't use 'Restore' was because restoring meant the last update would have to be uninstalled and the Restore facility didn't seem to be able to do this.

[Oilandgasman]

I have auto updates "On" so cannot really answer the question as I have downloaded a number of them, and until now have not considered them suspect.. I have had Norton for years and I know they have protection software within their system which will block system restore. When I need to restore I follow their instructions. If you are aware of something else causing this, please advise and I will be happy to give it a bash. It is irritating though!!

[parabellum]

I have read that the System Restore incorporated in the MS OS is a very light weight facility, it has cured minor problems for me but before I installed Norton Save and Restore if System Restore didn't work it was usually an indication of something more serious and may require you to format the HHD and start again.

Have used Norton Save and Restore twice now and it has done an excellent job both times, it is a serious tool that re-writes the HHD with a copy it has taken earlier, back-ups recorded according to how the owner schedules it, me, one per week, keep the two most recent, delete older back-ups, works in the background, zero drama.

[rogerg]

I had this problem, so instead of trying to beat windows I restore in "safe" mode. Works every time. The easy way to get to "safe" mode is to press F5 when it is booting up. (XP)

[mcdhu]

............and while we are on Sys Restore, my default setting for the memory set aside for it is 3% or 1547MB. Is that a reasonable amount or can I reduce it given that when I scan with my antivirus, it seems to spend a lot of time scanning sys restore when presumably only the last few 'restores' are the ones you might be interested in. So how big is one 'restore' - I guess it depends on your config etc. Can anyone help please?

Cheers
mcdhu

[Bushfiva]

If you're on XP, a system restore point might top out at 40MB or so. If you're on Vista with all the bells and whistles such as volume shadowing and versioning, the data associated with a restore point could hit 6GB but would be way more likely to be around 1GB. The actual "system restore" part of that would be XP-sized.

Ballpark figures, squinting, from a distance you understand.

[A2QFI]

I have had this "Restore Failed - no changes have been made" message within Vista. The answer seems to be to start in Safe mode and then do System restore. That works for me.

[frostbite]

I found that System Restore can use up a hell of a lot of HD space (XP) if you casually set points without deleting old ones.

Recently clawed back a huge amount of space by deleting all but last two.

[Duckbutt]

I have XP Pro with Kaspersky security and came up against the same thing.

Through Googling discovered that it was the built in "self defense" feature that was causing the problem, solution: open Kaspersky, go to Settings/Service and uncheck the 'Enable Self Defense' box. The system restore should then work OK and 'Self Defense' can be re-enabled afterwards.

[mcdhu]

...........but how do you delete restore points? There doesn't seem to be an option from the properties window.

mcdhu

[Saab Dastard]

Switch off System restore, reboot then re-enable it and reboot again.

Alternatively you can use Disk Cleanup utility to delete them.

You are probably best served by creating an exclusion in your AV program for the location of the system restore files ( System Volume Information), rather than making it smaller to minimise time to check it.

SD

[frostbite]

Fairly sure I did it from within Cleanup.

[Tarq57]

In my limited experience it doesn't take much to totally bork a restore point. A antivirus detection/quarantine of something in a restore point is enough to render it useless.
System restore can be handy at times; an alternative is a free reg backup called Erunt, but nothing really substitutes for making regular backups, or images, if you have the imaging software.