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Win7 Can Delete All System Restore Points On Reboot
An anonymous reader writes "Astonishingly, the so-called system restore feature in Windows 7 deletes restore points without warning when the system is rebooted. This forum thread on answers.microsoft.com shows some of the users who have experienced the problem. Today I did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (no dual boot), and noticed that whenever the machine rebooted after installing an application or driver, the disk churned for several minutes on the 'starting Windows' screen. Turns out that churning was the sound of my diligently created system restore points being deleted. Unfortunately I only found this out when Windows barfed at a USB dongle and I wanted to restore the system to an earlier state. This is an extraordinarily bad bug, which I suspect most Windows 7 users won't realise is affecting them until it's too late."
Given the recent similar issue with supposedly buggy Windows updates, I say this is an undetected root kit cleaning up after itself.
Computer Science is all about trying to find the right wrench to bang in the right screw. -T.Cumbo?
Yeah, it's great, which is why I run Windows in a VM on Linux. I keep a snapshot of a working XP virtual disk handy.
Why? I'm the go-to geek in the family and I've had to call Microsoft registration many times to reactivate XP after an upgrade or salvaging a drive from a dead MB. They're always polite and friendly, and reading the seven sets of six digits over the phone and typing in the response only takes about 10-15 minutes. But...
What about when that 800 number goes dead? Or they stop giving out activations for older XP systems? Or they finally say "sir, that's an OEM license and only valid for the broken machine, not the new MB."
Ironically, what I need the Windows VM for the most is iTunes. Thanks, Apple!
Linux issues can be fixed.
Windows can be reinstalled. Probably. Or you can buy a new version and migrate your data. Perhaps.
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
It makes perfect sense to remove the oldest restore point when there is not enough room to create a new one. No matter how much disk space you allocate to System Restore at some point you are going to fill it up. Having it prompt the user would cause it to prompt every time after that. For people who don't understand System Restore very well this kind of prompt might lead to more harm than good. If someone gets a warning saying their system restore space is full, they might clear it out completely, especially if they were getting this message on a regular basis.