System Restore Tutorial - How To Set System Restore Points And How To Clear Them All Out If Your Computer Gets Infected With Malware

Update - 2011-0108 - See my blog post about how I use CCleaner which also has information on how to clear out a lot of previous System Restore Points, which, if you are having issues with needing more space on your hard drive, this will free up a LOT of space quickly... not only removing unnecessary SRP's but also cleaning out the rest of the stuff that CCleaner will clean. http://lennythecomputerguy.blogspot.com/2010/08/ccleaner-how-i-use-it-to-manage-my.html
Based on a recent question and my answer in one of the computer tech forums that I participate in... and due to the number of my customers that do not know how to use System Restore properly, I thought I'd do a little tutorial on this VERY IMPORTANT topic.  As a general rule, most computers set a new restore point every day or every 8 hours of use and depending on how your settings are set up, there may be just 5-10 restore points or more than 30 restore points.  The more memory you give System Restore to save restore points, the more it will save.  You can use CCleaner's System Restore tool to see the dates/times of all of your restore points and adjust your settings accordingly if you'd like more or less restore points being saved.  They can use up a lot of disc space if you give System Restore the maximum percentage of space.  I usually give it 1% to 5% depending on the size of my hard drive.  12% is the maximum percentage the last time I looked.
Changing the percentage with Windows XP is rather easy by using the slider.  It's not as easy with Vista and W7.  Here's another tutorial on how to change the amount of space you give System Restore on Windows Vista & 7.  http://www.vista4beginners.com/System-Restore-Space-Used 
Here's a snip from that page, just in case the website ever shuts down.
If you want to change the amount of space used by System Restore, you should use the following command:
vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[drive letter]: /For=[drive letter]: /Maxsize=[maximum size]
MaxSizeSpec must be 300MB or greater and accepts the following suffixes: KB (for kilobytes), MB (for megabytes), GB (for gigabytes), TB (for terabytes), PB (for petabytes) and EB (for exabytes). If a suffix is not supplied, MaxSizeSpec is in bytes. If MaxSizeSpec is not specified, then there will be no limit to the amount of space it may use.

For example, if you want System Restore to use a maximum of 1GB of space for the restore points on drive "C:", you should type the following:
vssadmin resize shadowstorage /On=C: /For=C: /Maxsize=1GB 

Although you would likely want more than 1GB of space on a newer BIGGER hard drive.  I set mine at 10GB.
-----Original Message-----
From: CHAD Yahoo Group
On Behalf Of
Subject: [CHAD] Re: goback (a 3rd party computer program)
i just tried to find a way to set a restore point. i only had a choice of choosing points already established. so i went ahead and installed the software anyway.
the os is windows 7 home. can you please tell me how to create a restore point. i always did that on xp before installing anything.
-------------
My reply:
Vista and Window 7 are the same. Windows XP is slightly different... as far as getting to System Restore but after that, it's the same.
As usual, with computers, there are many ways to get to the same place so I'll cover a couple of them here.
Click on Start Menu, then All Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, then System Restore. That opens the System Restore window... with options of picking a previous point but the last line at the bottom says, (For Vista/W7) "To create a restore point, open System Protection" and if you click that, it opens the System Properties window to the System Protection tab and near the bottom of that window is the Create button. (For WinXP) As soon as you open the System Restore window, the option to Create A New Restore Point or Restore My Computer To An Earlier Time are both right there.
Now... that was the long way... since I haven't done this in a while on my Vista computer.
The quicker way would be to open Control Panel, then click on System, then on the left side, click on System Protection and it opens the System Properties window to the System Protection tab and the Create button is near the bottom (For Vista/Win7)
Now, once you've done that, the System Restore shortcut should be on your frequently used programs list and then you could just right click on it and pin that to the Start Menu and it will always be on the Start Menu list so creating a Restore Point will only be three steps... click the System Restore button, then click the blue link near the bottom to open System Protection, then click the Create button on that tab.
Here's some more info about System Restore from Microsoft and other reputable websites.
Vista/Windows 7 Basic Page - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-is-System-Restore
MS Windows XP How-To Page - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084
XP - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial56.html
Vista - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial143.html
Vista - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-windows-vista-system-restore/
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Now, if your computer is ever infected with malware, the smart malware will often infect your System Restore Points so that after you clean it the first time, it will come out of hiding in the System Restore Points and re-infect your computer.  Most anti-malware programs either do not scan System Restore Points or cannot clean them if it does find something.  In that case, once you've run several anti-malware programs and your computer is running well, you might want to empty all of your old System Restore Points.
To do this, go to System Restore as described earlier, choose the System Restore Settings (in XP), which opens up System Properties.  Click on the Settings Button to see what percentage of your hard drive you have allocated on your computer.  On the System Restore Tab, put a check mark in the "Turn Off System Restore on all drives", click Apply and it will take a moment to empty all of your System Restore Points.  Once that is done, UN-check the box and click Apply, then click the Settings Button again and either set it at the same that you had or more or less, depending on what CCleaner showed earlier in this article.
Or, in Vista, open System Properties to the System Protection Tab and you will see which of your hard drives have restore points set for them... usually your C: drive but it can be others.  Your D: drive is often the Recovery drive and is not checked.  To clear out all of your System Restore Points, UN-check the box to the left of your C: drive and you will get a pop-up asking you if you are sure... click the Turn System Restore Off IF YOU ARE SURE YOU WANT TO CLEAR THEM ALL OUT... otherwise click CANCEL.  By Default, Vista sets aside 15% of your hard drive for System Restore Points.  If you find you have a LOT of SRP's, you might want to reduce the amount of space allocated to SRP's.  It's not as simple as with XP but here are detailed instructions.  http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/reduce-system-restores-disk-usage-in-vista/
Lenny Vasbinder 504-667-5111
Skype - LennyTheComputerGuy
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http://lennythecomputerguy.blogspot.com/