Creating a system restore point in Windows XP

Before installing another program, replacing a piece of hardware on your Windows PCs, or tweaking your registry, it is recommended that you always create a system restore point that you can use for restoring your system settings to its previous state, if something goes wrong with your installation of the new program or hardware, or your system tweak.

By default, the system restore feature is enabled when you first install Windows XP on your PC. Windows uses the feature to create snapshots of the system on a regular basis. If you have multiple drives or partitions, and you have adequate disk space, they will all be monitored by the system restore feature.

If you have less than 200MB of disk space on your system partition (the partition where Windows is installed), the system restore feature will be disabled. Only after you’ve freed up disk space on your PC can you enable it again. To enable this feature, go to My Computer, click View system information, click the System Restore tab, then remove the check from the Turn off system restore on all drives box.

If you disable system restore monitoring on a drive, all system restore points for that drive are deleted and can no longer be retrieved. Take note of this before disabling system restore.

To create a system restore point, follow the steps below:

1. Click Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->System Restore to run the System Restore Wizard.
2. The Restore my computer to an earlier time option is selected by default. Select Create a restore point, then click Next.
3. Enter a name for your restore point in the Restore point description field. It is advised that the name be something that you can easily remember so that you won’t have any difficulty looking for it if you need to make use of the restore point.
4. Click Create. The restore point will then be created.

To restore your PC to an earlier time using system restore, do the following:

1. Click Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->System Restore to run the System Restore Wizard.
2. Click Next.
3. Select the system restore point you want to go back to from the list.
4. Click Next.

Remember to close all open programs before running the restoration process.Creating a system restore point manually is advised before you make major changes to your system, such as when installing a new program, replacing a hardware, or making changes to your registry. So, before making any major system changes, always make use of this feature. It could save you a lot of pain later.

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