Restoring Your Operating System

In the beginning, you start with a clean computer with a brand new operating system. As time goes by, you install new programs, delete programs, change your system settings, and upgrade to new versions of programs. Gradually, things change, and sometimes things fail, and you might find yourself wishing you could go back to the way things were. Now you can! You can use System Restore to roll back your system to the condition it was in at a prior point in time. You can roll back to any of these types of checkpoints and restoration points:

• Windows Vista creates an install restore point each time you install a program or device driver, and each time Windows Update installs an update.

• Windows Vista creates a system checkpoint when you back up or restore your computer.

• You can create a manual restore point at any time.

You can turn System Restore on or off for each hard disk in your computer, as long as the disk is at least 1 GB. (System Restore will not run on smaller disks.) Each hard disk must have 15 percent of its total space free for its restore points, which are saved on the individual disks. When the allocated restore point storage space is full, older restore points are deleted.

Restoring your computer restores Windows Vista and the programs that are installed on your computer to the state they were in at the time of the selected restore point. Your personal files (including your saved documents, e-mail messages, address book, Windows Internet Explorer Favorites, and History list) are not affected. All the changes made by System Restore are completely reversible, so if you don't like the results, you can restore the previous settings and try again.

System Restore also creates shadow copies of files and folders that have been changed since the previous restore point. If you make a change to a file or folder that you wish you hadn't, you can open the shadow copy and save it as a new file. Similarly, you can open versions of files that have been saved during a backup. To view available shadow copies and backup versions, right-click the file or folder, click Properties, and then in the Properties dialog box, click the Previous Versions tab.

In this exercise, you will create a manual restore point and see how to restore your computer to a previous state. There are no practice files for this exercise.

1.	In Control Panel, click System and Maintenance, and then click System.
2.	In the Tasks list on the left side of the System window, click System protection. In the User Account Control dialog box, if you're logged on as an administrator, click Continue. Otherwise, enter an administrator password, and click OK. Tip You can also access System Restore by clicking Undo Changes To Your Computer With System Restore in Windows Help And Support, or by clicking System Restore in the See Also area of the Performance And Maintenance window. The System Properties dialog box opens, displaying the System Protection tab.
3.	Click Create, and then in the System Protection box, type SBS Restore Point to identify the purpose of the restore point.
4.	In the System Protection box, click Create. [View full size image]
5.	After Windows Vista creates the restore point, click OK in the System Protection box.
6.	In the System Properties dialog box, click System Restore. The System Restore wizard starts. [View full size image] The restore point of the most recent software or driver installation is selected as the recommended restore point.
7.	Select the Choose a different restore point option, and then click Next. The System Restore wizard displays the available restore points and checkpoints. [View full size image] You can restore your computer to any of these points.
8.	On the Choose a restore point page, click Cancel to exit the wizard without restoring your computer to a previous point.