My brother stumbled on this disturbing item which caused a number of others to chime in that this apparently is not an unusual problem.
I did a clean install of Win7 about 3 1/2 weeks ago and have had no problems. 2 days ago I discovered that no system restore points were available. After spending many hours researching the issue, I’ve taken the following steps but none have helped:
1. Completely uninstalled AVG and installed Microsoft Security Essentials.
2. Tried turning off System Restore, rebooting, turning it back on.
3. Checked the SR schedule in Task Scheduler, all seems fine. It creates restore points just fine, it just won’t keep them on reboot.
4. Scanned computer thoroughly with three different anti-malware programs, no problems found.
5. Did a sfc /scannnow, no problems reported.
One guy contacted Microsoft with this rather bizarre answer and (not unexpected) request for money to research their problem:
Microsoft thought this might have something to do with my domain it but would not troubleshoot it for me without paying the fee, which I cannot afford.
Posted using a Mac
System restore is only an “Emergency Repair” tool called upon by the OS when there is a major malfunction and you need to backtrack a driver or software installation. It is NOT meant for backup of any type. After several successful reboots without a BSD or other OS malfunction, restore points are automatically deleted because the system is working properly, and a restore point actually becomes a negative item, possibly stepping on other items that have taken place after the restore point and screwing things up.
Users should not be accessing ‘restore points’, they need a good system backup.
The only time that system restore should be used for anything is when you are given the option to use it during bootup because the system itself notices a problem.
Awake, good advice.
#15 bb said, “Windows is so much more fragile due to Microsoft’s policies of trying to support every program even written.”
Here! Here! The legacy files in Win 7 must be humongous.
My wish list for Win 8:
1) Stop supporting pre-XP software and equipment
2) Get rid of the registry
Animby, that would be great. I think the real anchor of Microsoft’s business is their corporate customers. They are desperately trying to move a legacy of corporations that move a glacial speeds and still have tons of applications built on old DLL’s talking to 20-40 year old legacy systems.
Needless to say, the smart stuff you suggest ain’t going to happen too quickly.
Have Windows 7 in both x64 and x32 flavors installed on 6 different machines and haven’t had any problem as described with System Restore. I don’t think its unreasonable for Microsoft to charge money for tech support for a problem that is obviously one unique to the users configuration. Bashing Microsoft for doing so is silly and unfair since Apple charges for what are basically service packs to OSX. Of course no one ever said this site had anything to do with fair or accurate reporting.
All the bases have pretty much been covered here except maybe one, that restore points were a major cause of computer virus re-infection and that by making them perishable under Windows 7, Microsoft have significantly improved the overall security of the system. As far as the comments from the “M$” haters go, grow up, your angry little OS cult is too weird and spooky to ever be popular. Stick to flaming help site comment pages and trolling Slashdot into bankruptcy.
#2: DOS just worked. LOL. I remember the days, fiddling with boot disks to get a program (well, mainly games) to work. Trying to load high different drivers until it would have enough base memory space to work. Oh, and every program had to have its own special drivers fro printers and so on, instead of one driver for the OS. That was not a dream. More of a multi-year nightmare. Overall, I have had a better experience on 32-bit Windows, especially starting with Windows 2000 (which I though was the best). Still, XP and so on have their minor disasters.
I just fear that iPhones, iPads, and Android are very successful, and that may be the future of computer OSes. Consumers seem pretty good at it, but it is not an OS I would want.
I think this is actually a pretty interesting thread.
M$ haters and Mac Fanboi haters: I get a lot of flack on this blog about using a Mac and Windows. People are stupid and it goes both ways. pedro even takes personal shots at my family because of it. When it comes down to it, I would rather be using any computer today than 10 years ago, even with the problems that crop up. I spent three days mainly using the current Ubuntu last week and it was a far better experience than a Windows 2000.
EricPhillips made some astute remarks. I think the tablet and smartphone computing move will lead to “simpler” OS’s for consumers. It’s an appealing model in some ways – you run into a problem with your device and you wipe, reimage, and re-add programs and data from backup. Right now it’s tethered to something like iTunes but eventually there will be other options.
I see a split coming. Enterprises want “serious computers” and consumers want “fun computers” and specialized gaming machines. At work you want Office, at home you don’t want to look at a spreadsheet. At home you want the web, social networking, vids and pics, music, and games.
iPhones, Androids, tablets, cloud, netbooks, consoles, and amazing hardware make for some really interesting times in the next few years. Personally I think it’s going to be a lot more interesting than the last 10 years.
#21 – how does having an “emergency repair” system restore point become a negative?
Uncle Dave: I have the same problem. I’m running Win7 (32-bit) with AVG anti-virus. I just checked for System Restore points – there weren’t any (although it is switched on for drive C:). So I created one. Then I rebooted. Gone.
Of course I do have an external backup which does continuous backups.
Easy fix. Cheapest, install Ubuntu Better option, but more money, buy a Mac. Windows was and continues to be plagued by issues. Its days in the consumer market are numbered, the simple App model on the ipad and upcoming Android devices will be how the average household will using computing. Windows is simply too complex and prone to failure and hijinks to continue to maintain its place as a consumer product. The ipad model is what most people want in home computing.
#30
hahaha good one, almost had me there
#31, maybe not the ipad per say, but something simple like that. What do most people use their home computers for. Now, what serves them better, a overly complex Windows systems with DLL, registry, anti virus, folders, directories, ect, or the simple model of buying an app, launch it, it works. You tell me what most people want.
How hard would it be to create a “Pure” Win 7 for the “best” OS tht MS can create AND THEN have an “option” to load it up with “Legacy Edition” that supports all these “old” programs?
Should be “simple” if its just drivers and .dll’s?
To that end, I often wonder how fairly new programs don’t work with my new Win7/64. Why won’t they install in “32 bit mode?” I’m thinking of “Search GT” a very fast free little app that searches the hard drives for file/folder names. Works great in XP–won’t load in Win7/64. Did MS do this “on purpose” or is there a technical problem not worth working on?
(#33) Bobbo,
Most likely a 16-bit application. W7 dropped support for 16-bit applications. The kludge workaround is to run the app in a XP virtual machine.
OBTW, typing “Name:{filename}” in the W7 search box is the equivalent indexed quick search of filenames only. Works just like the old ‘find’ but faster.
Thanks bb. At least 16 bit makes sense but the program came out well into the age of 32 bit.
Yes, even in Win XP the native search routine was so slow I didn’t use it. The one in Win7 is far superior and actually “useful” but SearchGT was even better/faster.
Sadly, both programs “miss” files. I like to run both if I think I really do have the file and just can’t find it—easy to happen when running 10 hard drives (by external drives).
Actually, another free program “Visual CD” works on Win7/64. It is slow (1-2 min for 10 hard drives) but does catch all the files. Just have to update the data base on the drives that change often.
People actually use system restore points? I normally disable that feature right away. It’s next to useless when you actually have to troubleshoot something and most power users have no need for it.
@ #33/#34/#35
They didn’t technically drop support for 16-bit applications. It’s a hardware issue, you can’t use the CPU’s 16-bit instruction set and x86-64 instruction set at the same time, so you’ll run into the same problem on non-Windows OS’s. x86-64 is one place where Windows blows just about every other OS away. Getting things like flash working on 64-bit Ubuntu was a pain in the ass last I checked.
As for Bobbo’s software, you really can’t blame Microsoft for not maintaining backwards compatibility with every possible app, especially something that integrates deeply into the OS like that search app. Vista was a major update that dramatically improved security and entailed a lot of changes and the NTFS filesystem has been updated. 7 and presumably the next few versions of Windows will build on that base, just like XP/2000/98 built on 95. If a developer can’t be bothered to spend a little bit of time every few years to make sure their app is compatible with the latest version of the OS then they’re a shitty developer and don’t deserve your money.
Also, CD indexing software? Really? Why not just copy all those CD’s over to an external hard drive and use Windows 7′s libraries functionality to index everything?
Thanks Somebody==good to get some learning here.
Every CD indexing software I have seen will also index an entire hard drive. Visual CD allows one to search all my hard drives–even the ones that are not connected at the time. Sweet.
I do use Win7 search for my “active” hard drives but I index them as well for the files that for some reason Win 7 fails to find. Win 7 will take 20-30 secs whereas Search GT did it instantly.
No big deal unless you try to search multiple names 2 minutes before the show is on tv again–record it or not?
“Visual CD allows one to search all my hard drives–even the ones that are not connected at the time. Sweet.”
Libraries do that to. Its a pretty nifty feature if you’ve got stuff stored on multiple external drives and network locations.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Libraries-frequently-asked-questions
Oops, I misread you. The drive does need to be connected in order to actually see/search the contents in a library, but it still does a good job simplifying collections spread over several drives.
How much data do you have? You can get a 1.5 TB drive for ~$90, 2TB for ~$140. That plus an external USB/eSATA enclosure seems like a small price to pay for quick access to whatever you’re storing on DVDs. That or build yourself a NAS box, its a fun project.
Somebody else…in the last three months I have fixed five Win XP PCs with a great deal of help from restore points. One recent machine with a scareware problem was a PITA because the user had them turned off.