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Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

[WIN8] Restore Points?

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Windows 8 is supposed to make an automatic restore point daily. How come it has only made ONE system restore point since I got this machine on Nov 16?

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH

trparky

Premium Member

I would check to see if enough of the drive has been assigned to the System Protection.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to Mele20

Premium Member

to Mele20
Dunno, but there's little point in making a restore point that's identical to the previous one. So if nothing has changed....

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

I thought about suggesting the same but Microsoft's wording does state 'daily' so I'm not sure who's right here. In previous operating systems, the restore points were basically prior to system file changes so I'd expect Windows 8 to be the same.

La Luna
Fly With The Angels My Beloved Son Chris
Premium Member
join:2001-07-12
New Port Richey, FL

La Luna to Mele20

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to Mele20
Might be an (unresolved) issue:

»answers.microsoft.com/en ··· f966af62
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to trparky

Premium Member

to trparky
said by trparky:

I would check to see if enough of the drive has been assigned to the System Protection.

I assigned more but this is a 256GB SSD so I can't assign a lot. But that is not the problem. If it was running out of space, it would delete earlier ones to make room and it has not done that.
Mele20

Mele20 to urbanriot

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to urbanriot
said by urbanriot:

I thought about suggesting the same but Microsoft's wording does state 'daily' so I'm not sure who's right here. In previous operating systems, the restore points were basically prior to system file changes so I'd expect Windows 8 to be the same.

XP and Vista make one system restore point daily as per Microsoft's policy. Sometimes one day is missed but not a week or two. Something is wrong.
Mele20

Mele20 to La Luna

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to La Luna
said by La Luna:

Might be an (unresolved) issue:

»answers.microsoft.com/en ··· f966af62

That thread is really DISTRESSING! Had I seen this earlier I would have returned this computer. It is (the software installation of Win 8 not the hardware) defective obviously and Microsoft doesn't care. I depend on System Restore and I expect an automatic restore point daily. If Microsoft is telling folks who call that they have a defective installation of Windows...man I wish I had known sooner. I am right against the return date and I would prefer that to reinstalling which probably won't fix it anyway because I think the CSR's at Microsoft don't know what they are talking about when they tell callers their machines are defective...the Windows installation is defective. I'm sure Dell will be happy to hear that they are installing defective Windows 8 images.

At least one person in the thread said they have the OS on an SSD. I wonder if what is actually happening is that Windows 8 is not dropping off the old restore points automatically when restore is getting full but only on SSD?

Unlike for some users in the thread, it has made restore points automatically for some software installs, but not others....that's odd. I have not made any manual points partly because I figured Win 8 had System Restore perfected (Microsoft has had enough OSes by now to get System Restore bugs gone) and partly because my disk on my XP computer is too full to make system restore automatic points, and I have gotten out of doing manual ones on it as I haven't been installing new software, so, I thought briefly about it on Win 8, but with so much to learn I didn't actually look at it until yesterday after Dell's backup program was yelling at me.

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
·AT&T U-Verse

trparky

Premium Member

I have never relied on something else to do something for me when it comes to my computer, especially making System Restore Points.

I've never had a problem with an update before so it doesn't bother me if it doesn't make a restore point. However, I do manually make restore points if and when I'm about to do something stupid. And by stupid I mean things like updating drivers, replacing drivers, changing some obscure setting, etc.

Mele20 See Profile, given the way you refer to security software and the way you want ABSOLUTE control over just about everything on your computer, I'd have expected you to be making your own restore points.

La Luna
Fly With The Angels My Beloved Son Chris
Premium Member
join:2001-07-12
New Port Richey, FL

La Luna

Premium Member

Well, she WAS expecting that the restore points were being generated on a daily basis, which is apparently not happening and should be. She probably will make her own now.

Blackbird
Built for Speed
Premium Member
join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN

Blackbird to Mele20

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to Mele20
said by Mele20:

... Unlike for some users in the thread, it has made restore points automatically for some software installs, but not others....that's odd. ...

I wonder if Win8 is supposed to auto-detect a program installer's activation and auto-create a restore point before proceeding, as well as using that same routine via the restore-point scheduler... and perhaps that's where a defect lies. On the other hand, some apps software may be designed to specifically flag an API to request a restore point be generated by Windows... and perhaps that path does work (much like manually generating a point), and those are the ones that do trigger creation of a restore point.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

I rather thought that it was up to the app's installer, unless the Windows-provided installer was involved (.msi file).

chachazz
Premium Member
join:2003-12-14

chachazz to Mele20

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to Mele20
Has System Restore ever been reliable?
The system must be at a state of rest for some time; restore points aren't made while in use.

Play it safe - Grab this:
QRM-3: »www.thewindowsclub.com/c ··· re-maker
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

said by chachazz:

Has System Restore ever been reliable?

Yes, indeed it has.

The system must be at a state of rest for some time; restore points aren't made while in use.

I don't generally do much around 1AM to 3AM, so the default settings for most maintenance tasks (volume snapshots, backups, downloading updates) works well for me.
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO to Mele20

Premium Member

to Mele20
said by Mele20:

I depend on System Restore and I expect an automatic restore point daily.

I'm sorry it's failed now (due to a new bug or whatever reason). But you may create a new scheduled task, that will make RP every day.

my disk on my XP computer is too full to make system restore automatic points,

I hope you know that in XP you can easily limit disk space allocated for that purpose. Older RP's will be deleted automatically...
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20 to chachazz

Premium Member

to chachazz
said by chachazz:

Has System Restore ever been reliable?
The system must be at a state of rest for some time; restore points aren't made while in use.

Play it safe - Grab this:
QRM-3: »www.thewindowsclub.com/c ··· re-maker

That looks useful. Thanks!

The system is at rest while I sleep but default setting for maintenance tasks was 3:00AM. I am awake then usually and may or may not be on the computer. I note that the one automatic restore point was at 4:16AM. Since I got this computer, I got my days and nights really backwards (very easy for a night owl to do) so I was up until 6AM some nights trying to figure out something about Windows 8, so, I wonder if System Restore gave up on automatic restore points because it was erratic times I was not on the computer? I set it just now to do maintenance tasks at 5AM (don't plan to stay up that late anymore) so, I will watch to see if now it will make auto restore points. Sam Knows does its testing between x:40 and x:00 each hour so maybe that activity was interfering with a default 3AM maintenance tasks schedule also.
Mele20

Mele20 to OZO

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to OZO
said by OZO:

said by Mele20:

I depend on System Restore and I expect an automatic restore point daily.

I'm sorry it's failed now (due to a new bug or whatever reason). But you may create a new scheduled task, that will make RP every day.

my disk on my XP computer is too full to make system restore automatic points,

I hope you know that in XP you can easily limit disk space allocated for that purpose. Older RP's will be deleted automatically...

What I meant (but said very poorly) was that it makes only one restore point for some time now and has deleted all others. I used to have 90 days of restore points when the disk was maybe 1/2 full...then that shrank to 60, then 30 and now just one. In fact, Windows turned off System Restore on XP when my free space dropped to about 15% and I couldn't even defrag (not that XP needs that often). I deleted everything I could then and now have about 20% free space so System Restore was turned back on by Windows. (I haven't needed more than 30 days of points in years but if I had the space why not)?
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to Mele20

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to Mele20
The standard Windows 7 SystemRestore task starts only if, at the appointed time, the system has been idle for at least 10 minutes and is on AC power. I would suppose Windows 8 to be similar.

These values can be adjusted in the Task Scheduler.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

Evidently Windows 8 is very picky about when it will make a restore point. Last night, I installed 4 Microsoft patches that I had downloaded from Microsoft Download Center and saved to disk. I installed each one manually. No restore point was made before any of them were installed.

I found this in Event Viewer....four times in a row and each refers to installing one of the patches:

Log Name: Application
Source: System Restore
Date: 12/12/2012 3:34:12 AM
Event ID: 8216
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Smokey
Description:
Skipping creation of restore point (Process = C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs; Description = Windows Update) as there is a restore point avaliable which is recent enough for System Restore.
Event Xml:

8216
4
0
0x80000000000000

2790
Application
Smokey

C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs
Windows Update
00000000550200004B0200000000000022CE28677C6DDA79E28C1C000000000000000000

/Event

It did make a restore point before installing Win Patrol and that was the most recent one. So, it felt that was a good enough one in case any of the patches caused problems.

Maybe it is not making an automatic restore point because I have been installing programs frequently. Maybe when I stop doing that then it will start making an automatic point?

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
·AT&T U-Verse

4 edits

1 recommendation

trparky

Premium Member

Alright Mele20 See Profile, I've done a lot of research into this particular problem and I've come up with a solution. It involves one of the two Registry Files that I've attached to this post, execute one of them depending upon which version of Windows 8 you're running (32 or 64-bit).

Once you do that, in theory of course, the system should make more System Restore Points. It appears that by making the Registry modifications included in the Registry files I've attached, it disables Windows 8's default System Restore Point creation process of determining if one needs to be created.

I've also attached a small program that I created to make System Restore Points easier and quicker since it doesn't require so many menus to drill through to get to the option. Just execute the program, include some text to be included as the Restore Point description, and click Create.

I posted a new version of the program that I included in this post. It includes some additional features which includes the listing of current Restore Points that the system is holding. To update the program, simply click the "Check for Updates" button and it will pull down the latest version and update it. Requires Microsoft .NET Framework version 4.0 Build 4 has been posted, the new build includes the ability to delete individual System Restore Points from the list of existing Restore Points.
trparky

1 edit

trparky

Premium Member

Source Code for the program posted above is available for review. In fact, here it is! Attached to this post.
trparky

trparky

Premium Member

Restore Poin···Code.zip
228,214 bytes
Source Code Bundle
Restore Poin···.exe.zip
17,999 bytes
Here are updated files. Fixed a rare crash upon load.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

Sounds great! I was wondering why I could not delete individual restore points. Although, I seem to recall from XP that if you were to delete one (not the most recent one...but one in the middle, you would ruin all restore points after that one....is that still the case?

I see in another thread that there is a .NET 4.5 now so this will work with it, I assume?

I don't want it to make too many though as this is a SSD (not a gigantic data storage drive) but I can control that via the percentage of space I allow for System Restore.

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH

trparky

Premium Member

Yes, 4.5 is backwards compatible with 4.0.
trparky

trparky to Mele20

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to Mele20
said by Mele20:

I don't want it to make too many though as this is a SSD (not a gigantic data storage drive) but I can control that via the percentage of space I allow for System Restore.

I know that feeling, I only have a 256 GB SSD in my machine. Space on the OS drive is at a premium.
said by Mele20:

Although, I seem to recall from XP that if you were to delete one (not the most recent one...but one in the middle, you would ruin all restore points after that one....is that still the case?

Not sure.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

I recall Microsoft said that each restore point builds on the previous one (at least for 98SE and XP) so if you removed one in the middle, or your antivirus program rummaged around in System Restore and found some nasty and deleted it thus corrupting that restore point, then all points after the removed/corrupted one would be worthless. This is why I always exempted system volume information from both the on demand and real time anti virus scanners. But I don't know system restore functions the same way in Windows 8 or not and Microsoft has published very little information on things like this for Windows 8.

Yep. My SSD is 256GB. I have a gigantic (2TB) storage drive (would have preferred 1GB but Dell didn't offer that) with little on it and a SSD that is drive C that is filling up.
johnpd
Premium Member
join:2003-11-20
Green Valley, AZ

1 recommendation

johnpd to Mele20

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to Mele20
This change in making System Restore points started with Windows 7. See this: »msdn.microsoft.com/en-us ··· x?ppud=4

"Scheduled restore points

System Restore can be configured to create restore points at regular intervals. Users can also manually create and name a restore point at any time from within the System Restore user interface. These restore points are saved and compressed, and these choices are available to the user through the System Restore user interface. System Restore in Windows 7 creates a scheduled restore point only if no other restore points have been created in the last 7 days. System Restore in Windows Vista creates a checkpoint every 24 hours if no other restore points were created that day. System Restore in Windows XP creates a checkpoint every 24 hours of absolute time.
"

trparky
Premium Member
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
·AT&T U-Verse

trparky

Premium Member

I'll be posting an updated version of my program in a few hours. Included in the update are some cosmetic fixes that are a bit annoying and that I didn't catch when I initially released the program. There are some internal fixes for 64-bit machines in which a Registry key wasn't being created properly, that had been fixed as well.

Updates will be distributed via the program itself. Simply click on the Check for Updates button in the program and the program will download the file from the product website as well as an updater that will do the appropriate file changes.
trparky

trparky

Premium Member

It seems that the Scheduled Task Triggers for the System Restore in Windows 8 seem to be missing, at least for my system that is.

You can correct this by going to the Start Menu, type in "scheduled" and run "Scheduled Tasks". Expand "Task Scheduler Library" and drill down to Microsoft\Windows\System Restore. There you will find an item called "SR", double-click it.

Go to the Triggers tab. Create a new trigger and set the following...
Daily, At 12:00:00 AM. No other options.

Make another one with the following...
Select the "Begin the Task" drop down and select "At Startup". No other options.

Now your system should make regular System Restore Points.
Mele20
Premium Member
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI

Mele20

Premium Member

The triggers are missing on mine also. But I made a huge mistake right after I got this computer. I completely disabled Task Scheduler. I never used it on XP and I didn't realize that Windows Defender scans are launched from Task Scheduler.

I only realized about Windows Defender yesterday when I happened to read a thread on how it works in Win 8 at TechNet. I didn't recall that I had disabled Task Scheduler but finally figured out the errors I was getting there (saying it wasn't running when it was) and got it enabled again.

From your observation though, it would not have mattered if I had kept it enabled. There are no triggers for System Restore so it still would not have done a scheduled restore point.

I still haven't installed your program but will when I get back from exercising. I don't see much point in System Restore as it is by default on Win 8 and that is because it has DELETED ALL RESTORE POINTS except the last two (one of which I made manually a few minutes ago).

Does your program prevent it from deleting previous restore points? It should behave like Restore in XP where the user designates the amount of space System Restore can take on the disk and restore points are not deleted until all space is used or 90 days of restore points has been reached. I don't need 90 days of them but for Windows 8 to delete all except the current two is OUTRAGEOUS and makes System Restore pretty much pointless.