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How-To Geek Forums / Windows 7

Creating manual restore points:

(9 posts)
  • Started 4 months ago by outofenergy
  • Latest reply from whs
  • Topic Viewed 159 times

outofenergy
Posts: 4

Hi,

new to the forum, would really appreciate some help with this problem ive encountered.
currently playing poker professionally online and have come across an error with the software
that i use. (only crashing on desktop, laptop software works fine) ive tried all solutions that i know, technical support seem to know less than i do.
so i came to the conclusion that i could only use system restore to hope that this reverts back to a usable version.

unfortunately i have a new desktop and have no system restore points before the incident, is there
a way of creating a manual point or restoring from a shadow copy?

(using windows7)
thankssssss

Posted 4 months ago #
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raphoenix
raphoenix
Posts: 14920

You can restore the Clean Image from the restore partition or Clean Install if you that originally with an installation disc.

Posted 4 months ago #
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outofenergy
Posts: 4

hehe, sorry i really dont know anything about computers :-(

i wont have access to the installation disk until monday

Posted 4 months ago #
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raphoenix
raphoenix
Posts: 14920

May be one of our other members can help you better than I can. :)

Posted 4 months ago #
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whs
whs
Posts: 17584

If you do not have a restore point in the shadowstorage, you cannot restore. But check whether there are any. Open an ELEVATED command prompt and run this command:

vssadmin list shadows

Look for restore points on C:\. Now if there are none, then you are out of luck.

Restore points are a very iffy facility. They have this habit to mysteriously disappear. And they are only created once per week (in Windows 7) or when you install or uninstall something. For the future I suggest you make an image to an external disk whenever you want to preserve a certain state. That is a lot safer method and you can manage it yourself. Here is how.

Posted 4 months ago #
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outofenergy
Posts: 4

hi,

yes there are restore points for c:/
i will definetly take your advice for the future to avoid problems similar to this,
but for now, how can i restore to a point shown in the "list shadows" when it does not show up in
system restore, as a point of return?

Posted 4 months ago #
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whs
whs
Posts: 17584

That is a good question if the system does not cooperate. I seem to remember that there was an option to try a different restore point. But if that does not show, we are out of luck.

You do realize that the system restore restores only the system, but no user data. The restore points do, however, contain all the user data (which is not being restored). If you are after this data, I know a method how to get at that. Let me know. You may even be able to recover program files - if you know the ones that give you trouble.

Posted 4 months ago #
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outofenergy
Posts: 4

the only restore points available are from today 8/2/13 and none from the last 3 months ive had the desktop, i dont know why maybe i changed some
setting without paying attention to what it was.

i think i only need the system data, i dont know what program files are causing the problems if thats what it is tbh, but if you can help share your solution
no harm in trying

thanks

Posted 4 months ago #
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whs
whs
Posts: 17584

You can try this approach. But if there are no older restore points, it may not help. The tutorial does not only apply to 'lost' files.

Posted 4 months ago #
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