A master SysRestore point - possible?

[Xander]

Obviously Windows doesn't allow this but I'm thinking outside the box.

So, you've just cleaned up a system and got it set to your liking before handing it back to the customer. One final System Restore point gets saved. That restore point then gets copied to a specific backup location on their drive. As we all know, SR works on a FIFO basis and will flush the old points. But I think it might be nice to know that we've got one old point in reserve.

Obviously, imaging the drive is the ideal but most of us flush after 30 days from the sounds of it. If they came 2 months later and you think to yourself, "A system restore could probably fix this and save me some diagnostic time...but it's only got 3 weeks worth of points saved" then this idea might have some merit.

Also, you wouldn't want to fall back on a point that was too old as it might do more harm than good, erasing dozens/hundreds of updates and so on.

Programmatically, you'd identify the newest restore point, copy it to another location (e.g. nearby sub-folder). Weeks/months later, and I'm not sure if this would even work, you'd copy it back so it would show up in the SR list.

I could see this might be something that D7 could do (maybe as part of its SR purge?).


EDIT: Let me make this clear -- this is not a request for your favourite imaging software. This is a potential complement to that.

 

[Disposable_Me]

Might want to look into Paragon Backup Capsules

 

[Xander]

That's an imaging method. Apples/oranges. Fine and dandy but I'm looking at this as "image-lite." There are plenty of times where you might not want to chew up 30GB of their drive with a hidden partition or store that info on your NAS eternally.

This would be about having an extra little card up your sleeve for the not too distant future and not tie up any of their resources in the process.

 

[mraikes]

Obviously Windows doesn't allow this but I'm thinking outside the box.

So, you've just cleaned up a system and got it set to your liking before handing it back to the customer. One final System Restore point gets saved. That restore point then gets copied to a specific backup location on their drive. As we all know, SR works on a FIFO basis and will flush the old points. But I think it might be nice to know that we've got one old point in reserve.

Obviously, imaging the drive is the ideal but most of us flush after 30 days from the sounds of it. If they came 2 months later and you think to yourself, "A system restore could probably fix this and save me some diagnostic time...but it's only got 3 weeks worth of points saved" then this idea might have some merit.

Also, you wouldn't want to fall back on a point that was too old as it might do more harm than good, erasing dozens/hundreds of updates and so on.

Programmatically, you'd identify the newest restore point, copy it to another location (e.g. nearby sub-folder). Weeks/months later, and I'm not sure if this would even work, you'd copy it back so it would show up in the SR list.

I could see this might be something that D7 could do (maybe as part of its SR purge?).

Ghacks had a nice tutorial on this a couple years ago. I haven't tried it, but it looks plausible:
http://www.ghacks.net/2010/05/09/how-to-backup-system-restore-points/

 

[tim fitzgerald]

Ghacks

I have been looking for an answer to that question for a while. Ghacks saved the day for me when I discovered that post.

 

[PC Ops]

I like the idea Xander The Ghacks-link provided by Mraikes seems like a doable method. Just copy the restore point in question to a location to your likings.

Like I said: I like it

 

[glricht]

When we do a N&P, one of the last things done is to create a restore point for future reference. I've always thought about making a copy of the RP for possible use in the future and the technique mentioned above appears to do the job.

However, would I actually use it if a number of months had elapsed since it was created? Not sure I would except as a last-chance attempt to salvage a system. Shudder to think of all the pgms installed/uninstalled and other registry items that would be affected.

 

[pc-rebuilders]

My favorite

I have been using http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm for over a year or so. Great product and well worth the money for the full package.Very good support and so far free updates.

 

[Xander]

Terabyte Unlimited is imaging software and was clearly not the point of the original post. OP edited to make that even clearer.


Gary, I can't bring each OS' versions to mind but the "affected programs" list would be very helpful in deciding whether or not to go ahead with it. Like I said, this wouldn't be something to depend upon but something that might give you one more option to possibly avoid a N&P. If I had a choice between a N&P (and all it entails) versus a SR and reinstalling a few programs... easy choice. Especially since I could undo the SR and N&P later if needed.

 

[glricht]

Gary, I can't bring each OS' versions to mind but the "affected programs" list would be very helpful in deciding whether or not to go ahead with it. Like I said, this wouldn't be something to depend upon but something that might give you one more option to possibly avoid a N&P. If I had a choice between a N&P (and all it entails) versus a SR and reinstalling a few programs... easy choice. Especially since I could undo the SR and N&P later if needed.

My thoughts exactly. Now if there was some way -- in advance! -- to determine what would be affected by the SR, that would be a big help.

 

[FoolishTech]

Hate to burst bubbles here but this would only possibly work for registry hive backups and not files, unless you back up the ENTIRE system volume information directory.

System restore stores a single restore point in an RPxxx folder in there, yes. But say you create Restore Point A, then follow up with a second we'll call restore point B. Now if little or no files have changed since restore point A, then restore point B's RPxxx folder won't contain unchanged files since the ones in restore point A's corresponding RPxxx folder. So when you do a system restore and restore to point B, it pulls first files from restore point B and whatever isn't there is pulled from restore point A, if the files aren't in A it pulls from a restore point before that.

So basically if you had just backed up restore point B alone and restored it without point A, your system restore to point B would fail due to missing files.

 

[JustInspired]

The registry is a good start. I've saved a few XP systems by using registry backups that have been automatically created by ERUNT (which I had installed the last time the machine was brought in)

I have not tried ERUNT on newer systems only XP.

 

[Xander]

Good info, Nick. Thanks.

But, again, like JustInspired mentioned - having even just a working registry backup may be enough sometimes. Isn't this what D7's OfflineSR does? This would be a similar idea but drawing from a different, specific backup location instead.

 

[ZenTree]

Like the ingenuity here but recapping on the restore points over a certain date and the comment about choosing this over a nuke and pave with a reinstalling a few programs:

The potential for this method to have so many little faults that you don't notice straight away, and require a lot of tweaking and messing about is massive. I appreciate this is a last ditch but it's going to take longer than a n&p to trace all those issues and iron out the kinks. Since this would only be used on a last ditch effort you are only going to use this on the most FUBAR of systems, meaning your going to be having all sorts of fun. I'd n&p at this point for sure. My customers don't want to be having niggly issues for a few weeks after, they want up and running and working.

Shorter time since restore point was made I see it as viable (but then surely the normal restore points would still be there? unless damaged) but unless they just CANNOT do a fresh install I would stay away from doing this as a last ditch effort.

 

[FoolishTech]

Good info, Nick. Thanks.

But, again, like JustInspired mentioned - having even just a working registry backup may be enough sometimes. Isn't this what D7's OfflineSR does? This would be a similar idea but drawing from a different, specific backup location instead.

No, offline SR just launches system restore that should be present on the system in offline mode.

The feature, I think it is RegReplace is similar, designed to restore the registry with those found in the \system volume information directory.

But talking about additional registry backups, I would save that for an actual registry backup utility, run on a schedule if necessary.

 

[HFultzjr]

Obviously Windows doesn't allow this but I'm thinking outside the box.

So, you've just cleaned up a system and got it set to your liking before handing it back to the customer. One final System Restore point gets saved. That restore point then gets copied to a specific backup location on their drive. As we all know, SR works on a FIFO basis and will flush the old points. But I think it might be nice to know that we've got one old point in reserve.

Obviously, imaging the drive is the ideal but most of us flush after 30 days from the sounds of it. If they came 2 months later and you think to yourself, "A system restore could probably fix this and save me some diagnostic time...but it's only got 3 weeks worth of points saved" then this idea might have some merit.



Also, you wouldn't want to fall back on a point that was too old as it might do more harm than good, erasing dozens/hundreds of updates and so on.

Programmatically, you'd identify the newest restore point, copy it to another location (e.g. nearby sub-folder). Weeks/months later, and I'm not sure if this would even work, you'd copy it back so it would show up in the SR list.

I could see this might be something that D7 could do (maybe as part of its SR purge?).


EDIT: Let me make this clear -- this is not a request for your favourite imaging software. This is a potential complement to that.

Why not use something like Tweaking.com Registry Backup? I thinks it's similiar, but more thorough than System Restore. I think it, or something similiar is included in D7. Or, it can be added as a portable app. The resulting file can them be stored anywhere and recalled at a later date.

 

[FoolishTech]

Why not use something like Tweaking.com Registry Backup? I thinks it's similiar, but more thorough than System Restore. I think it, or something similiar is included in D7. Or, it can be added as a portable app. The resulting file can them be stored anywhere and recalled at a later date.

I have a similar app, RegBackup. It does same as Tweaking.com's utility, but I can tell you they are not more thorough than system restore because they only get the registry of course! But it is advisable to use either of these apps over ERUNT because they use the volume shadow copy service rather than savekey API which is unsupported since I think Win2000 and could potentially cause issues.