All praise Systems Restore!

RastaManBob

RastaManBob

RastaManBob

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Joined
30 Dec 2003
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2,254
After doing some Java development I've been messed with various phones checking compatibility... Installed the wrong drivers and wanted to change the drivers... But was having issues with Windows not thinking the ones I wanted to put on were better and keep reverting to the old (incorrect) ones.

Eventually I started removing files from the command prompt, in the inf directory. Just after I'd finished I intended to dir o* to check I'd removed everything I wanted but instead typed del o* - Ouch!!

After quite a while frustrating trying to rectify the situation I considered System Restore. I'd never used it before and actually used to turn it off... Luckily I must have forgotten this time and let it run it's magic and see if it helped... It only went and fixed the problem!!

I'm sure this is old news to a lot of people but anybody like I was before this incident and preferred to disable it: Don't... You never know when you might mess up! :)
 
Should have used the driver roll back option in the first place, system restore has caused more issues than it's ever fixed in my experience.
 
System restore has saved me numerous times. Had to use it on my laptop when it started BSODing with a registry error. Rolled back 2 weeks (it had been on for that long) and all was fine :p
 
Dano said:
Should have used the driver roll back option in the first place, system restore has caused more issues than it's ever fixed in my experience.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, when I plugged the phone in the first time I let Windows choose drivers for it. Not being completely familiar with the phone it added about 4 drivers for various features (Mass storage, modem, etc). I later found out the Windows drivers didn't work and I should have used the drivers on the CD (Which I don't have).

Whenever I downloaded the correct drivers for the phone they came in one zip so I didn't know which was which - Manually installing was out of the question. I couldn't "Roll back" as the first/only installation was the wrong Windows one. My only hope was to "Uninstall" the driver and try again... But doing this just reinstalled the Windows drivers automatically the next time I put the device in.

The only way to get it to "forget" to use the Windows drivers and prompt me for the drivers was to remove files from inf... Unfortunately due to my stupidity I deleted a little more than I'd intended and broke a few things in the process.

Restore fixed everything :)
 
pirate said:
That's right. I always disable system restore on my pc.
Click to expand...

If you read further down you'll see exactly why I couldn't use driver roll back.

In my situation I don't believe there was any alternative but to delete certain files... Certainly no Google search was ever going to give me a better answer... And deleting files from inf worked. It was my fault that I I typed the wrong command in.

But it was System Restore that got me out of the proverbial!

I used to have the same opinion as you and disable it and I cannot understand for one moment understand why it was actually enabled as I usually make a point of disabling it immediately after installing Windows.

All I can say is that it is one of those tools that you do not appreciate until you do use it. I'll be leaving it on from now one... Sure there might be occasions where it doesn't work/help but it'll have a better chance if it is turned on rather than off! :)
 
System restore (Vista) has always worked for me, only complaint is it doesn't roll back far enough (I set up a restore point after a fresh install of Vista just as a safe point but it 'goes' after while).
 
I heart System Restore. While most of the problems I've had to use it to fix have been caused by Windows in the first place, it's certainly saved my bacon on a number of occasions and I've never noticed any problems issuing from it. Very clever tool.
 
RastaManBob said:
After doing some Java development I've been messed with various phones checking compatibility... Installed the wrong drivers and wanted to change the drivers... But was having issues with Windows not thinking the ones I wanted to put on were better and keep reverting to the old (incorrect) ones.

Eventually I started removing files from the command prompt, in the inf directory. Just after I'd finished I intended to dir o* to check I'd removed everything I wanted but instead typed del o* - Ouch!!

After quite a while frustrating trying to rectify the situation I considered System Restore. I'd never used it before and actually used to turn it off... Luckily I must have forgotten this time and let it run it's magic and see if it helped... It only went and fixed the problem!!

I'm sure this is old news to a lot of people but anybody like I was before this incident and preferred to disable it: Don't... You never know when you might mess up! :)
Click to expand...

+1
 
Great that the poster managed to recover the OS.
I'm a +1 for System Restore - although I only leave it turned on for my OS and Program partitions.
 
Not a big fan of system restore, it potentially harbours all sorts of cack and consumes vast amounts of space.

Instead I use ERUNT to periodically backup my registry. Along with an image of a fresh install, it's all I need to get back up and running.
 
I'm also a big fan of system restore, yes in certain situations I have disabled it for a time to get rid of a virus but most of the time its enabled me to recover a fubar pc, most classic was my daughters which she'd turned off during some kind of update (ooh, its not going off quickly so i'll force it off with the power button)
When I turned it on networking wasn't working, sidebar had about a zillion instances of each widget and various other problems, one roll back and a proper update later and we're all up and running again.
Space isn't at a premium any more so I don't see the problem with it.
 
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