How much disk space does XP's "System Restore" feature uses?

Question

1. How much disk space does XP's "System Restore" feature uses?

2. Is this a good feature? Is there any drawback?

Answer 1

Hi C1N2G8,

It depends on the complexity of your system but my restore points are right at 20 meg each.

If you are hurting for space you can delete the older restore points. I would never turn off system restore. It has saved my bacon a couple times. The only drawback is the space your restore points use.

System restore takes periodic snapshots of your system. This information uses quite a bit of space.

To delete older restore points, but leave the system restore turned on: Open My Computer, right click the drive in question/Properties/Disk Cleanup/More Options/System Restore/Cleanup.

You can also click the Settings button to set a maximum amount of space that you want each drive to use for restore information. If the drive you select isn't the system drive, you can also disable System Restore on a per-drive basis. The maximum amount of space that you can use for restore information is 12 percent per drive.

I hope that helps you.

Norm

Answer 2

1. There are two possible answers to this one, depending on what you meant by "use." If you meant the overall space it can use on your machine, you can find out by right clicking on the My Computer icon and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu. On the System Properties dialog box, select the System Restore tab and click the Settings button. The Settings dialog box will show the total disk System Restore can use on your machine.

The other answer is how much SR will use each time it creates a restore point. This varies a lot, depending on what you've been doing since the last restore point was taken. Installing or uninstalling software can pump up the restore point. On my machine, I figure it uses about 30 meg per restore point if I haven't done much.

2. It can be a good feature or it can be a bad feature. Viruses have been known to lurk in restore points, which is obviously a bad thing. There's no guarantee that doing a restore will work, or even not make the situation worse. On the other hand, if it does work, it can overcome some serious problems.

Personally, I don't like the SR user interface. There's no way to know how much space is being used, and there's no way to delete restore points other than right up to the last one created.

Answer 3

1. Not a lot really. I do not have the exact amount and I know that it is not much(less than 1gigabyte) . I am using it and there isn't any significant loss of space.
2. Yes it is good because if you have problems, you could roll back the computer to a couple days before when you didn't have any problems and it will be all good. Drawbacks, non really except you generally cannot go more than two months.

Answer 4

I guess System Restore works when it feels like it. I mean, no doubt some people have had luck with it, but the one time I needed it, it began the restore I requested only to learn that it could not complete it. I've seen others with the same problem from time to time.

I'm not anti-Microsoft, but I don't get a "warm & fuzzy feeling" when it comes to some of their add-ons. Instead, I just fully back-up my system. Since most people should be doing back-ups anyway, this is the recovery method I prefer. Just my view.

Answer 5

The amount of space that System Restore uses is user adjustable. Right click My Computer > Properties > System Restore > Settings > adjust the slider to the amount of disc space you wish to allocate to System restore.

Answer 6

Not too much, you can set the amount of space it uses manually. You can always delete older restore points to save space. It's a great feature especially if you install / delete a program and it meses your PC up. You just roll your PC back to before you made the change.

Answer 7

Do all of this at your very own possibility....i'm no longer responsible for the end result . . . the 1st element to do is to make confident you have emptied your Recycle Bin. next in case you utilize information superhighway Explorer, flow to information superhighway concepts , be confident you're interior the final Tab, then in surfing history, click the Delete button. From right here you may delete your momentary information superhighway documents, history and Cookies. Then run your anti-undercover agent ware application to do away with any undercover agent ware that would properly be clogging your device. Your question certainly has numerous good questions . . . maximum of which might take extremely a whilst to wisely answer. to shrink the products to run upon startup: Make a instruction manual hotel element then flow to start --> Run --> type msconfig --> ok. click the startup tab and then uncheck the products which you do no longer what to run at startup. be careful in spite of the indisputable fact that, you do no longer % to uncheck issues like your anti-virus or needed purposes. while uncertain - leave it!

Answer 8

it uses between 4-12% of your drive's space