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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."
I don't know if anyone's been in the same situation as I have, but the only times I've had to use system restore were a disaster. For virus infections, the restore data tends to be infected too, so that's useless. For restoring from bad drivers, applications, etc. the only time I had to do that I went from no network connection to BSoD on boot which took me two days to fix.
I have disabled System Restore now, and I never ever suggest using it to anyone I know.
System restore has always been awful. It doesn't play well with anti-virus, it's slow, it's always been buggy. Worst part is I've only had it work to fix a problem for me ONCE in the couple of years I bothered with it. These days if I want to save the state of a computer that is working well I simply image the disk. More expensive and potentially time consuming but a hell of a lot more reliable.
Oh and don't image it with Windows 7 Microsoft tools. I had an issue with Vista's system restore tool once that had me scrambling for a copy of Virtual PC to read the images. (Vista system restore would just wipe the existing partitions then fail with an error before restoring a thing).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I just checked and I have 9 restore points going back two weeks. I would have restarted several times in that period. The summary makes it sound as if this is a bug that affects all users. I don't think that is the case.
Yeah or maybe it's not affecting most Windows 7 users.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Last resort of the desperate! Failed restore ahoy!! Batten down the ram hatches, load the cache cannon and pray lads, pray!
It's going to be a rough one! A working restore is like catching the white whale. Sure you can do it but it might kill you
in the process.
I thought I had this, but then I double checked and realized I had my system restore max space set to 700mb. My single restore point was taking up 555mb of this. I upped the space. Maybe some people are being too over zealous with cranking down the space? (I forgot how much it took up when I set it I guess.)
[Edit: Looks like the accepted solution on that thread simply increases the space allocated to System Restore! I could be right, maybe?]
It is impolite, if not rude, not to throw up a warning message or error message, though. You never delete data without giving the user a chance to say no.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Tell that to Gentoo Linux and their default WIPE /tmp ON BOOT option!
Perhaps my own fault for keeping stuff i need in /tmp, but still no excuse.
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?
Are you kidding me? /tmp is TEMPORARY! It's transient - that's the whole point!
Programs that store data of ANY permanence in /tmp are broken. People who store data of ANY permanence in /tmp are foolish.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
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!
The latest Ubuntu 10.X is so good it is scary. Why anyone wants to run a Windows machine is really beyond my understanding. Do yourself a huge favor and climb off the Microsoft teat.
Maybe because some people have work to do? Maybe because they get paid to use windows applications? Or maybe because they want to run some specific applications such as games that won't run well on the latest Ubuntu?
Not everyone WANTS to fiddle with their computer, some just want to do stuff with it then go away and do something else. This is why the Mac is popular too. Narrowing yourself down to a single choice of OS and outright saying "Ubuntu is better!" is just foolish. It is like saying that Perl is better than C - but you don't even know what the problem is that is trying to be solved yet! It might be that a totally different language is better than perl or C, but without knowing what the goal is, you can't pick the best solution.
For the record, I am typing this on an iMac, with a XP Pro system next to me, and a Mythbuntu system off to the side as well as 2 other machines that I often change out OS'es on for different purposes. (Currently Redhat is on them at the moment).
Outright saying "Why anyone Wants to run Windows" ignores that different people want different things from their computers. Your solution is not theirs.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Foolish? I think that's an understatement. Using temp for storage is like getting angry when people flush your shit down a toilet.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
On the contrary. It is *extremely* rude to throw up a confirmation dialog before every trivial system maintenance task.
As has been pointed out below, System Restore is basically only useful for resolving problems so severe they prevent your system from booting. Once your system has booted you don't really need older restore points, and they take up a *lot* of space. Deleting them is absolutely the right decision for the average user. The *real* problem here is probably the UI for creating system restore points not mentioning the deletion policies and generally misleading people into believing that creating restore points manually is a useful thing to do.
These people creating restore points all the time remind me of the people who get obsessed with defragmenting their disks every night...
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
i don't know about you but i prefer to be alone while i'm taking a dump, and I generally flush before opening the door. so, if someone is in there with me flushing before i leave, then i'd probably be a little pissed.
That is where I keep all of my important documents.
I have a nasty habbit of wiping out my home directory and ever since the janitor app died it's been a good world writable location.
Now I can share important projects, personal documents and data troves.
In fact the tmp directory worked so well for my data needs that I moved all of home to that directory. I wanted to facilitate synergy between users.
Eventually a friend gave me a wonderful suggestion of migrating the entire operating system to tmp. Through a clever array of symlinks I have moved all the original folders to tmp and created links in the original locations. I now have the best of both worlds!
This is pretty much all thanks to a friend of mine who has a sys admin gig at a nearby college. He's even helping me work out a new system of backups via the high speed tape interface "/dev/null."
He is pretty friendly so if you are on irc you can look him up under his nick BOFH for some friend sys admin tips.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
LKG isn't System Restore. It simply rolls back part of the registry (HKEY_SYSTEM/Current Control Set) to the last time it booted successfully. Any damage to HKEY_Software or the file system isn't covered. I've also had things crash after it decided that the current CCS is good, making the next reboot a pain. It's mostly there to deal with buggy newly installed drivers.
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.
Just to help you understand: "Last known good configuration" is a copy of your registry (or rather a subset thereof) at the point of your last successful log in. If you log in successfully, but something does not work, then the "last known good configuration" was just saved and is of no use in that situation. This is NOT system restore.
System restore is more than just the registry. If you cannot login (even after trying "last known good configuration"), then you can try system restore by booting off of the OS CD/DVD and "repairing" your installation. If you log in successfully and something does not work, then you can also try system restore. And yes, system restore WILL fix your computer by bringing it to an older state at which everything worked, given that: 1) you don't have hardware issues 2) a virus has not infested your restore points and 3) you have restore points before the problem started.
The fact is, advanced tools are just that, advanced. Windows comes with bare metal tools, and the ability to properly configure a daily, weekly, etc, backup on external disk. And there are more advanced features for the adventurous. I guarantee you I won't lose data if my Windows box dies. I have daily backups, a RAID10 internal with a hot spare, blah blah blah. But I'm not a typical user.
And neither are you. We both know how to use our OS to protect our data, even if it involved what appears to be wizardry to the average user. I really wish backup were easier. Windows 7 actually informs the user regularly that they don't have a backup, and will continue to warn them if a backup ever fails. That's great progress, but it's maybe not yet good enough. Let me know when a popular Linux distro supports bare metal backup and a snapshotting filesystem with the ability to "go back in time" to a good state, I look forward to that day. Until then, you have your wizardry, I have my slightly-less-magical-looking GUI that manages most of it for me built in. *shrugs*
IMO, I'd like to get to the point where OSes, Windows, Mac, Linux, really, seriously warn the user the moment their data isn't safe. It's one thing for Windows 7 to pop up a notification balloon, or for OS X to complain that Time Machine isn't set up, but I feel like there should be more than that. And on Linux, I don't think there's anything comparable at the moment.
Tired of this misconception. Seriously. I've been using Windows software for 14 years, and I have NEVER had to do a full system reinstall. EVER. People who need to reinstall Windows all of the time are doing something really really wrong. I'm not sure what, nor do I care. I'm not a zealot, Windows sucks in more ways than I can shake a stick at. I've done my fair share of cursing and screaming at it over the last decade and a half, but there hasn't been a damn thing I haven't been able to fix without the need to reinstall the whole thing.
The urinal knows nothing...
The janitor on the other hand, sitting in his room behind his desk filled with rows of video monitors, VCR's and 'flush' buttons...
[Edit: Looks like the accepted solution on that thread simply increases the space allocated to System Restore! I could be right, maybe?]
Wait! You can edit slashdot posts after posting? I thought they were final! When did this happen?
[Edit: Wow. This is amazing. Looks like its working here on my end. How about you guys?]
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