Windows Restore

[Mac the Knife]

Just of of curiosity, has anyone ever actually managed to get back to a Restore Point with this excuse for an application?
The only times it ever worked for me was back in the old XP days - since then it has never succeeded (usually halting with an error) and occasionally made things worse.

For a good while now I have been using Macrium Reflect and found it very reliable - I tend to be lazy and just reimage the disk (because it is usually due to my poking around where MS doesn't want me to go!). My MirrorFolder takes care of important documents, so why am I wasting disk space on this dumb bit application that is unreliable and give folk a false sense of security.

I have an enormously complex (too complex) tier of backup systems that finally ends up in a Quantum LTO-6 tape drive and a couple of tapes. Am I insane? I grew up in the days when hard-drives were as reliable as a junkyard dog and and I am totally paranoid about a) Data loss and, b) Having to reinstall that abortion that Windows 10 has become. And yes, I have Linux and BSD and Mac systems too.

Should I forget it all and move to the Cloud, despite the South Africa's slow connections?

Any ideas welcome.

Mac

[Guest 112233]

I still see Win 7 creating a restore point when updating those hefty Updates - My Win 7 Pro Dell did this yesterday - As a note I do not see much reference to restore points these days. I'm not sure about Win 8.1 and I do not use Windows 10. (PS Timeshift is highly effective in Ubuntu 16.04 & Mint 18.3)

CAT III

[obgraham]

I've restored to a saved Restore Point several times -- usually after encountering a bit of malware or virus through some nefarious websurfing. It always worked just fine.

But then, being a Luddite, I'm using 7 on my desktops, with no plans to update. (Though I am considering a complete shift to an iMac.) I only back up my data, not the programs, so going to a cloud based system is not for me.

[Jetstream67]

I'd say about 100% success rate with fully uninstalling unintentional /unwanted downloaded apps etc,
More like 30- 50% with seriously messed up systems. Not unusual it either fails or makes things worse

Always worth trying it but most of my faith is in a combination of full system disc images of the 'clean new system' (just install windows, maybe office, licence regirtration if required etc and do all updates) and recent backups of email and other user files, photos music data etc.

[Mac the Knife]

(PS Timeshift is highly effective in Ubuntu 16.04 & Mint 18.3)

Agree wholeheartedly. I think you've just been very lucky OBG.

Why can't MS get it right for once? Not as though its THAT difficult. Justa sort of mix of cp and diff

Mac

[Blues&twos]

I have used system restore successfully on plenty of occasions over the years, (Millenium I think, XP, Vista, 7 - haven't had to do it on Win 8.x as far as I can remember, and I only use 10 at work).
Most of the time system restore was used to sort out weird performance issues or settings changes which I don't think I had any involvement with...
Never had any problems with it, but the PCs are just home machines with nothing too complex on them, and they've never been in a particularly frightening mess before I've run it.

[Philoctetes]

If the system is that messed up I reinstall a fresh copy of Win10 - naturally all my docs,emails,firefox bookmarks and pictures are backed up to another drive.
But then I have restore switched off!

[magruder1980]

System restore works fine for me - but like a few other people I am a bit paranoid about backups.................

Interested to hear Mac still backs up onto tape......... now that IS a bit old school.....

[parabellum]

Only two major cock-ups I have had were when I tried to use System Restore with Windows10. Now happily back with Windows 7.

Still looking for a reliable and recommended back-up programme that works after a hard drive has been formatted.

[yellowtriumph]

I've restored to a saved Restore Point several times -- usually after encountering a bit of malware or virus through some nefarious websurfing. It always worked just fine.

But then, being a Luddite, I'm using 7 on my desktops, with no plans to update. (Though I am considering a complete shift to an iMac.) I only back up my data, not the programs, so going to a cloud based system is not for me.

My experience has been much the same on our W7 laptop. We have an iMac too (and very, very pleased we are with it). With the iMac we back up locally to a permanently connected external 1TB drive, but we also use iCloud for data sharing and some backup. Currently we ‘rent’ 50GB for 79p per month, I note that 2GB is currently £6.99 a month.

PS. We disconnect and hide the external 1TB drive if we are away from the house for any period of time.

[olympus]

Used System Restore a number of times over the years (XP, Vista, W8.1) when a computer is misbehaving for no reason that is immediately apparent to me. Most recently my W10 laptop had started disconnecting from the internet unprompted so before delving more deeply into things I thought I would try System Restore and... it worked! I only had a choice of two restore points so chose the earliest and have had no further problems.