even XP System Restore is unsafe

[dcouzin]

Warning to fellow naifs. Even XP System Restore, with its reassuring "This process ... is completely reversible" is not safe. I recently was hunting for a restore point to solve a certain apparent driver problem. System Restore took me back a month, but the problem was still there. So I asked System Restore to go back another month. After the long process it announced that it couldn't accomplish the restore. So I tried a different, intermediate date. Still it couldn't. So I tried another and another. On about the 5th try Windows couldn't start. Some file was reported missing or corrupt, and I was asked to insert the Windows Installation disk. Of course our Thinkpads don't come with such a disk. (There is a nice post on this site from 4saad.com explaining how to make one.) I behaved helplessly and took a complete restore to factory state. Pretty XP System Restore can lead you where you didn't intend to go.

[GomJabbar]

Generally System Restore is safe, but occasionally it will create big problems, or will not work at all. I have read that Norton AV will break System Restore, and when I had Norton AV installed, I could not go to a previous Restore Point at all (I no longer use Norton AV). I personally have had to use System Restore from Windows SAFE MODE to get it to work (FTR: this is after I had already gotten rid of Norton). To play it safe (no pun intended) I plan on using it from SAFE MODE from now on (when I need it).

[dcouzin]

Gosh, I do run Norton AntiVirus. This time around it seems less intrusive than MacAfee, but this is no indication of its insidiousness with Windows. What AV do you recommend?

[rkawakami]

If you are getting this specifc message:

"Restoration Incomplete. Your computer cannot be restored . . . "

then you may want to read this:

Symantec Support

Basically, if you use NAV 2006 and some earlier versions, Windows System Restore points cannot be restored because NAV has a default setting which protects itself from being changed. Turning off that function will NOT allow you to use those restore points that were created when that feature was enabled. In other words, you must turn off the function for FUTURE restore points to work correctly.

I am still using NAV 2002 on most of my systems which does not seem to be affected by this bug. I believe I have NAV 2005 on a couple of systems, one of which WAS affected by this problem. I could not restore any of the checkpoints because NAV had been installed for several months and all of the ones still in the system were unusable.

[USSS]

What AV do you recommend?

Kaspersky AV Personal Pro.

[Ken Fox]

Gosh, I do run Norton AntiVirus. This time around it seems less intrusive than MacAfee, but this is no indication of its insidiousness with Windows. What AV do you recommend?

AVGfree

[dr_st]

I recommend Symantec Corporate Antivirus and to _NEVER_ use System Restore.

[GomJabbar]

System Restore saved me out of a couple of pickles. The big one was the PC Doctor 5 upgrade snafu. The other one was a printer driver that broke the Standby feature of my wife's ThinkPad (at the time I didn't know what had caused the Standby failure). On the the first issue, I had to go back a couple of weeks, and on the second a couple of months.

I view System Restore as one of the tools available to restore a damaged software environment. It has it's place, as well as System File Checker, data backups, system backups, and the Product Recovery Discs.

[tfflivemb2]

I recommend Symantec Corporate Antivirus and to _NEVER_ use System Restore.

While this is the exact same method that I use, I would like to be able to use the System Restore feature from time to time.

I have worked a few systems that I had to reinstall, because the owner decided to try installing the wrong driver packages, OR had disabled their version of Norton (the bloatful kind) to install something else, and screwed everything up. Had the System Restore feature worked, I could have saved myself alot of time.

[dcouzin]

Going back to rkawakami's post, I think the option he suggests be deselected is "Enable protection for my Symantec product".

[dr_st]

Had the System Restore feature worked, I could have saved myself alot of time.

Precisely. From my personal experience, it almost never works.

[bill bolton]

Precisely. From my personal experience, it almost never works.

In my experience, it works very reliably, but I wouldn't touch Symantec AV with a 10 metre pole!

Cheers,

Bill

[Wiz]

In my experience, it works very reliably, but I wouldn't touch Symantec AV with a 10 metre pole!
Cheers,
Bill

Just curious, when you say Symantec AV do you mean Symantec AV Corp Edition or Norton AV since that is two different products?

I use Symantec AV Corp Edition and find it to work really well, but wouldn't ever want to use Norton AV.

[bill bolton]

You say Symantec AV do you mean Symantec AV Corp Edition

Yes.

Cheers,

Bill

[Stargate199]

System restore is a great tool, but there are many programs that can mess it up. Because programs like Norton AV and such require a daily update to work properly, they do not like being reset to earlier time period. They purposely have the program reject the system restore repair to keep its files up to date. The reason for this is that there might be a way to use system restore to get free updates after subscription has expired. This doesn't make since because the update servers know who has a subscription, and who does not. I know Norton 2002 and 2004 products don't seem to have this problem, but the ones made after 2005 do. Yes, I have had a system restore fail because of Norton. I think I fixed it by booting into safe mode and running system restore from there. In my opinion, all security programs suck. They all use too many resources, and they are very buggy. I have had a Trojan get past Norton AV, and security holes get past Norton Firewall. ZoneAlarm seems to do the best job, but now I have a hardware firewall, so I wouldn't know.