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

Mele20

Premium Member

Re: [WIN8] Restore Points?

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

Premium Member

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.