System Restore is a feature built into Windows that periodically creates a “restore point” or backup copy of system and/or user files so that the system can be restored to a previous state in the field. event occurs.
Normally, Windows automatically creates these system restore points before certain events i.e. install new software, update driver, install Windows update etc. happens, Windows will create a restore point every seven days.
Regarding files, System Restore will save a copy of the file or folder when it is modified, but only if a restore point is created. You can then restore the previous version of the file or folder by right-clicking the file or folder.
Don’t think of system restore as a backup solution for your files and folders because it’s not as powerful as using Windows backup or a third-party backup program.
Enable System Restore
By default, System Restore is enabled on Windows unless it is turned off manually. To enable System Restore, we need to open System protection navigation. You can do this in one of two ways. Note that the instructions below should work on Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10.
Click Begin and then type in system recovery. You will probably get several different options and the one you want to click is Create a restore point.
If System Restore is disabled, you will see Turn off listed in Protection for each partition on the hard drive.
Note that if your computer has multiple hard drives, you may see them all listed below Protection settings. Windows is usually installed under C: (System), so click it to select it. Then click Configure button.
Click Turn on system protection radio button and then adjust the slider below Disk space usage to a value between 3 and 5 percent. Note that this value will be based on the size of the partition, not the size of the hard disk.
Use recommended disk space for system recovery
This means you can have a 1 TB hard drive but split it into C and D partitions. C is the system partition where Windows is installed and could be just 100 GB and the rest is on the D partition. If you enable System Restore on drive C, then 3% will be 3 GB and 5% will be 5 GB.
If you only had a giant C partition the size of the entire drive, 3% of 1TB would be a whopping 30GB, which is huge. In these kinds of cases, just set it to 1% or 2%.
Whatever percentage you use, just make sure the value is greater than 1000 MB or at least 1 GB. Note that each GB will be able to hold between 1 and 3 restore points, depending on what you have on that partition.
I recommend using a value between 3 GB and 10 GB for system recovery as it can be very useful in certain situations. The more you have, the more likely you are to recover your computer from a crash.
If you want to reduce the amount of space system restore is using on your system, simply adjust the slider to a lower percentage. Alternatively, you can click Delete to delete all current restore points for the drive. This way, you can keep system protection enabled, but free up some space if you’re running low on hard disk space.
Turn off system restore
Disabling System Restore is as easy as enabling it. Click Start, type in system recovery and then click Create a restore point.
Select the hard drive you want to disable protection from in the list, then click Configure. On the next screen, select Turn off system protection or Turn off system protection.
Click OK and system restore will be disabled. You will also receive a message stating that all restore points will be deleted from the disk and new ones will not be created.
As mentioned before, I don’t recommend disabling system protection unless you know what you’re doing and already have another fallback solution. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Interesting!
