OS and Software > Microsoft Help > [Vista] Vista System Restore??

reply to TK421

Re: [Vista] Vista System Restore??

It is not so much that I am "scared" of command line ...I got over that years ago (I was terrified of even looking in the registry at first years ago too...and that was good probably...because that way I didn't screw the registry up by trying to do something when I didn't know what I was doing...but I'm not afraid of the registry now either). It's more that I don't know commands to use once in the dos box. I can type in a command in the box that I know ie "ipconfig /all" stuff like that but to do anything in depth, I get quickly lost. Plus, I have to fight myself to not type slash marks backwards and there are a lot of them in the command box. I'm left handed and they slant the wrong way for me.
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason

See my earlier links to Berk Kinney's site about System Restore. He provides not only the command line arguments to use, but pre-written scripts you can use if you do not like using the former.

In any case, let me head off a potential issue. Lets say you adjust the VSS store size. For whatever reason, you do a System Restore to a date prior to having adjusted the VSS store size.

It should not be surprising, but for some it is, you have reverted the settings for the VSS store size, (along with a lot of other things).

So in setting a new size, clean your old Restore Points so that you never forget.

Bill Castner
--
============
MS-MVP 2004 - -2008, ASAP Member
Users Helping Users

Ah...that is a good point about cleaning the restore points if I set a new size. I think I would have realized I needed to do that but maybe not.

I haven't read your links yet (I have a major problem with Avira on the Vista machine plus other things taking my time) but I will read them tomorrow or Saturday when I have more time. Thanks.

Plus, I may need to post in the MS Virtual PC NG and ask about making a new virtual hard disk for the Vista machine. If I do that, I wonder if Restore will see the extra space and enlarge the size of the restore points? I have to educate myself on adding virtual hard disks in Virtual PC as that is not something I could do in VMWare. After I learn more about doing that, I might not want to do it. So, I have a lot of reading to do.
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason

reply to bcastner

quote:

---

Vista restore points take a lot more space than XP ones. When I have time, I'll have to explore adding another virtual hard drive so I have more space for System Restore.

---

You have me totally confused. I've never done backups on XP. VSS is in the i386 folder only. Further, a virtual machine is separate from the host it runs on so I don't understand how VSS on a Vista virtual machine could possibly be globally common. The host machine has no idea that a virtual machine is running on it. Same with the virtual machine. With networking, all the machines are equal. Vista doesn't know that two XP machines are virtual (on VMWare Workstation) and the host machine (XP) doesn't know that it is only one of two physical machines on the network.

I don't dual boot and I have read about various problems when dual booting XP and Vista. I have XP Pro on the host machine. I boot it. Then if I want to use a virtual machine I start VMWare Workstation where I have Ubuntu, XP Pro SP1, XP Pro SP2 and a couple of other machines. I start the one I want. If I want to use Vista, since it is experimental on the version of Workstation that I have and I had problems because of this, I start Virtual PC and then I only have this one machine to choose. I can't see how starting the host machine could, in any way, affect the Vista guest machine. Starting the Vista guest machine and having it running along with the host, and one VMWare virtual machine (can't run more because I run out of RAM and this mobo will not accept more than 2GB), has nothing to do with the host machine or the VMWare machine that is also running. I don't have Hardware Virtualization. My CPU is capable of it but Dell did not enable it.

Vista Help seems to be saying that I and SipSizzurp are correct in that restoring previous versions of files is done by pulling the file from a restore point.

"Previous versions are either backup copies—copies of files and folders that you back up by using the Back Up Files wizard, or shadow copies—copies of files and folders that Windows automatically saves as part of a restore point."

This appears to be why I have seen very few files with previous versions as I don't have but 4 or 5 restore points. A restore point is not harvested, but the file is pulled from it.

I can't enlarge the VSS folder unless I get another virtual hard drive as the one I have is over two-thirds full. I know almost nothing about creating additional virtual hard drives for Virtual PC. On VMWare you set a fixed hard drive size when you create the machine and you are stuck with that size forever. Virtual PC is significantly different in this respect. I haven't had time to read again about creating another virtual hard drive for this Vista machine but I will do so.

I think my best solution is to install VMWare Server for the time being (I don't have the money to upgrade to Workstation 6 right now) and install Vista on it and uninstall it from Virtual PC. That way, I have snapshots and don't need System Restore. I want VSS turned off on Vista. I don't want Vista automatically saving copies of files. I like System Restore (on XP and have always used it), but if using that on Vista means this other stuff that I don't want then I need to put Vista on VMWare. If I get a new machine, and I don't invoke my downgrade rights to XP, I'll install Acronis TI on Vista and still keep VSS turned off. I want to use System Restore but I do NOT want to use Shadow Copy and they are evidently married to each other in Vista. Whatever happened to using the Recycle bin if you accidently delete a file? Whatever happened to using System File Checker if you have a corrupted/missing file?

This experience with Vista on a virtual machine has been good. It's definitely helping me decide if I would ever buy a machine with Vista installed.

edit: fixed typo
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason

I feel unqualified to sort all of your confusion. Hopefully one or two points can help.

VSS is in the i386 folder only
I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. VSS stands for the "Volume Shadow Copy Service". It is often, and I did early, used as a reference to the folder required for System Restore and the VSS Service. This is true in varying details from Windows ME to Windows 2008.

The actual Folder, is named the "System Volume Information Folder" in very formal terms, and I apologize If my shorthand earlier confused matters. It was not my intention to do so.

It is a protected folder, and one can find easily information about directly addressing this storage Folder: »support.microsoft.com/default.as···ontent=1

Nothing in the i386 folder, for any OS instance, if it exists, would matter. The folder is dealt with by kernel primitives, can only be located at the root of any OS instance BOOT volume, and is the only issue I was discussing. I sincerely apologize if by using shorthand this confused matters for you.

2. I do not feel comfortable discussing what Vista VHD image you are using or what happens when mounted under VMWare. I just do not know. Just be careful that neither the Host machine, nor any Guest image, attempts to share the same VSS or System Volume Information Area.

Bill

--
============
MS-MVP 2004 - -2008, ASAP Member
Users Helping Users

reply to bcastner

reply to bcastner
LOL You should have just said "System Volume Information" folder. I know all about that. I exclude it from my AV and I know it is protected. Several years ago, I had 90 restore points corrupted because Kaspersky had rummaged around in System Restore and found eicar which I had sent to the trash bin but didn't empty the bin, plus, I think I left one of the eicar files in my downloaded programs folder just being forgetful. KAV dutifully got rid of it in the System Volume Information folder and put a copy in quarantine. This was while I was sleeping. The next day (I think it was), wouldn't you know, I had a huge problem with a video card driver or something and really needed System Restore. I actually tried all 90 restore points as I was desperate and all were bad. It was only later that I realized why. (I had Acronis TI also and a fairly recent image but Acronis would not boot the computer).

Since then, the first thing I do with a new AV, or AV program update where settings may be lost, is exclude C:\System Volume Information from being scanned both on demand and in real time. (Obviously with this setting, if I ever got a virus, once I got rid of it, I'd need to delete all restore points). Sometimes though using a restore point that has a virus in it is preferable to your only other alternative being reformatting. So, I tell everyone to exclude System Restore from AV scanning so they don't sometime really need System Restore and all the points are corrupted except any since the AV deleted something and those points might be too new to help with whatever problem one is having and needs System Restore for.

I went looking for Volume Shadow Copy Service on XP and Vista. I also did a Google search and learned that VSS is not enabled on XP by default. You have to download something from Microsoft to enable it but once this is done XP also does Shadow Copy of files like Vista does. So, I thought you thought I had this enabled on XP. That is why I said VSS was only in the i386 folder meaning that I obviously had never downloaded the program from Microsoft so that VSS Shadow Copy would work on XP.

I did, from Command Line, get this information on XP:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Marilyn>vssadmin list shadows
vssadmin 1.0 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.

No shadow copies present in the system.

C:\Documents and Settings\Marilyn>vssadmin list writers
vssadmin 1.0 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.

Writer name: 'Microsoft Writer (Bootable State)'
Writer Id: {f2436e37-09f5-41af-9b2a-4ca2435dbfd5}
Writer Instance Id: {4cd2a09d-de0d-446b-ad89-b8662d88ff92}
State: [1] Stable

Writer name: 'MSDEWriter'
Writer Id: {f8544ac1-0611-4fa5-b04b-f7ee00b03277}
Writer Instance Id: {4c62ec2b-26f4-41df-bb1c-823e6d53fa51}
State: [1] Stable

Writer name: 'Microsoft Writer (Service State)'
Writer Id: {e38c2e3c-d4fb-4f4d-9550-fcafda8aae9a}
Writer Instance Id: {237deb92-1713-402d-bc92-88905619afa5}
State: [1] Stable

Writer name: 'WMI Writer'
Writer Id: {a6ad56c2-b509-4e6c-bb19-49d8f43532f0}
Writer Instance Id: {aadab526-d8ce-4ea6-9894-0c7250b83bd1}
State: [1] Stable

C:\Documents and Settings\Marilyn>vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.0 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001 Microsoft Corp.

Provider name: 'MS Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7

Does the first one listed have to do with the possible conflict with Vista and XP? I haven't seen any attempt to share the System Volume Information folder. I will ask this question in the Microsoft Virtual PC NG. It's an excellent NG and I have gotten help there before. Very knowledgeable folks (regarding Virtual PC) post there. I can also ask at VMWare forums but that's more iffy as to whether or not I will get any answers. When I installed Vista Ultimate to VMWare Workstation 5.5 (where it is considered experimental, (5.5 is still supported by VMWare until end of November 2008), I had no problems until I shut down the machine several days later. When I went to reboot, VMWare said it could not locate the machine. It was in the proper folder on my hard drive and the path VMWare was pointing to was the correct one but it could not see the machine. I posted in their forum and got NO replies and probably the only answer (if I had gotten one) would have been to upgrade VMWare Workstation but that is not free.
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason