Anyone else run with XP's System Restore turned off 24/7?

[GLD]

Like the title says, I have system restore on my XP Pro turned off 24/7. I have left it running and have used it before, but it didn't do jack shite for me if fixing any problems. The only time I can say I have seen anything work in regards to system restore is when it had to get turned OFF to fix a problem. A friend had something no good on his computer. Running virus programs, spybot, ad-aware, clearing temp. folders, cookies, etc. wasn't cutting it. We would run the gamut and reboot and it was reloading some crap into his start up and taskbar and giving him some bs error every boot. So I turned off his system restore and bingo, it purged the system of what ever the heck it was. No more errors or bogus program launching at start up. If I remember correctly, it was Spy Sheriff that was the cause of all this.

So it seems to me that system restore can be a mini partition, safe haven for some bad shite out there. I wont run the heap of a program. And to think, System Restore is supposed to be a first aid type of program but could actually be harboring the problem in the first place.

I hope the Vista variation isn't pooh like XP's.

[Ketxxx]

sys restore works fine. tho for security imo it should make a backup and stick with it not feel the need to overwrite every 5 seconds. or better yet make no backup at all and let the user manually create one to keep indefinately (by default XP kills off sys backups after 30 days)

[g30rg1e]

I always turn it off and my system is fine sometimes when getting updates xp complains its not running and asks should it enable but i decline. I have never used the restore function on a machine of my own though i'm sure its a feature loved by many, its just not for me.

[Wile E]

I don't use it either. It just takes up too many resources for my tastes.

[niko084]

Heh I don't think I have EVER had it turned on, it's like the first thing I turn off..

[Mussels]

... people turn it on?

I've never had a situation that sys restore fixed, ever. The one time it did (a laptop) it broke just about everything else.

I turn it off to save resources, thats the first thing i do on a new rig (second being manual setting of the page file)

[Lazzer408]

How many people actually run the restore utility to rollback? Most of the power users know how to manually recover from a bum driver or application. SR is another "windows for dummies" service.

[Fleekar]

SR for me has been great. When something just doesnt feel right or loads on its own like some shit called VirusBurster that was suddenly installed (must've been my bro) I used SR to roll back and then removed all other restore points to clean it up. I always use SR first before moving on to manual tools to remove since it saves time when it works. It DOES take alot of space though. 1 month's worth of restore points is ~1Gb. So for those who DO use SR and have a few months of checkpoints go clear it with the 2nd tab in disk cleanup.

When it does fail, I'm a newb at this stuff so i just google up the infected files for instructions which has always worked XD

[KennyT772]

mine is off...its a waste of disk space for any knowledgeable user

[Scavar]

Wait wait....you mean Windows has a System Restore?!

All kidding aside, it's complete crap. I use to keep it on all the time because I was paranoid. Then I just started making backups of things. If I can't fix something, ill just format it and be done with it.

[Jimmy 2004]

From my experience it won't actually impact on the speed which XP runs at, it only does something when the PC is idle.

But I still don't use it - the idea of half restoring old settings isn't something I like the idea of, like doing a repair install of Windows. Yes, it does work, but I'm not a fan of mix 'n' match when it comes to OSes.

[Mussels]

my two favourites:

Dads PC: virus infected it, so he used SR as a recovery. WHat in fact happened was it removed the registry entries for his antivirus (installed since the recovery point was made) but left the exes and the startup values... so the virus still started, and his AV was broken.

Repair install of XP: My brother... well he had XPSP2 and an XP CD with no SP's at all. you can guess how THAT repair went.

[Lazzer408]

my two favourites:

Dads PC: virus infected it, so he used SR as a recovery. WHat in fact happened was it removed the registry entries for his antivirus (installed since the recovery point was made) but left the exes and the startup values... so the virus still started, and his AV was broken.

Repair install of XP: My brother... well he had XPSP2 and an XP CD with no SP's at all. you can guess how THAT repair went.

Like Buttah?

[Alec§taar]

I don't use it @ all.

The most I usually do is create a "basic generic system image" using other tools like Norton Ghost, & restore THAT, when/if needed.

APK

[Wile E]

I don't even bother backing up my os. All my important data is backed up religiously, tho. If something happens to XP that I can't recover from, I just re-install with a stripped down XP with all my drivers integrated that I made with nLite. Once I set up the partition and get it started, I walk away and 15min later it's fully installed. I have to re-install all of my games and programs, but I just wait to do that until I want to play/use them again.

[mullered07]

have used it in the past and its useless imo, espec if you do a restore thats more than a week ago it totally craps up ur system and slows it down if i ever got to the point where i really needed to do sr and couldnt fix it myself i think id just rather have a clean install.

[cdawall]

mines never been on i used it on my pentium D but it has a huge hdd so i dont care how much space it wastes and its dual core so system resources that are used dont matter