Are System Restore points really ridiculously important? Specifically, do I really need 4571 MB reserved for 'em?
They’re really useful if your computer gets infected with a nasty virus. But if you know what you’re doing and keep your anti-virus up to date (and scan often), you shouldn’t need it that often. See if there’s a way to cut down how many times the restore points are set, or maybe you can get rid of some of the older restore points.
I’ve actually found System Restore to cause more viruses than it protects against. Evil people store viruses in there because it makes it impossible for norton to get to it. I’ve never even seen someone use system restore for anything useful. I get a lot of people asking me for tech help and whenever they say they have a virus I immediately suggest disabling system restore and restarting the computer. It works almost all the time. So if you want my opinion I’d say you don’t need System Restore at all.
Oh, I do, Cid. I have it set to auto-update, and it runs a scan every night. The 4571 MB figure comes from a slider bar in My Computer => Properties, set to 12%, but I dunno how else to get my hands on System Restore exactly. I’ll poke around in the Control Panels and set it to 6% (2385 MB) and see what happens.
My experience with restore has been pretty negative. If you need a restore, it means you most likely need and will still need a format. I actually had more problems backing up my stuff and setting up the format after a disastrous restore once.
Yea, just like sin said, if things get back enough that you need to restore, things are probably bad enough to warrant a format. I’ve always considered restore totally useless, i just back up my mp3s/movies/warez onto DVDs, then format.
The only time I’ve found system restore useful was when I was experimenting with the registry. Other than that, regular backups and a regular AV scan do the trick.
Turn it off, turn it off, for gods sake turn system restore off. I’ve seen nothing but problems with that damn feature, it’s more trouble then it’s worth.
Right then! sings “Shut it off, shut it off … Baby now I shut you downnnn!!!” o/`