Windows XP restore problem

**Ashlin** · 17-02-2009

Hey everybody,

I have Acer laptop and i had installed Windows Xp on it. I wanted to do system restore as my internet explorer keeps on shutting down automatically. As i'm trying to do a system restore i'm unable to do it. Can any one tell me why i'm unable to do a system restore? Any kind of help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

**Devasis** · 17-02-2009

If System Restore does not start, follow these steps:

1. Run Windows Update to check for and to install any system updates. Visit the following Microsoft Web site to check for updates: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com)

2. If you are prompted, restart the computer.

3. After the computer restarts, click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click System Restore.

If System Restore did not start, you can use the "Advanced troubleshooting" section to try to resolve your issue. If you are not comfortable with advanced troubleshooting, you might want to ask someone for help or contact support.

**Solomon** · 17-02-2009

If you use System Restore and don't like the new system state, you can undo the process and restore the machine to the system state it had before you ran System Restore. Alternatively, you can run System Restore to change the system state to a different restore point.

To enable or disable System Restore, perform the following steps:

Start the System Control Panel applet. Select the System Restore tab. Clear the "Turn off System Restore on all drives" check box to enable System Restore, or select this check box to disable System Restore. Click OK. Also here:

To delete older restore points, but leave the system restore turned on: Right Click the Drive in question/Properties/Disk Cleanup/More Options/System Restore/Cleanup.

You can also click the Settings button to set a maximum amount of space that you want each drive to use for restore information. If the drive you select isn't the system drive, you can also disable System Restore on a per-drive basis. The maximum amount of space that you can use for restore information is 12 percent per drive.

An alternative to the usual method of enabling and disabling Windows XP's System Restore feature is to use the registry. To use this alternative, perform the following steps: Start the registry editor (regedit.exe).

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore.
If a "DisableSR" value doesn't exist, go to the Edit menu, select New, DWORD value, and create the value.
Set the value to 1 to disable System Restore or 0 to enable System Restore.

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\sr to prevent the System Restore service from starting.

Double-click Start, and set the value to 4 to stop the service from starting or to 0 for normal startup. Close the registry editor.

**MrChris-** · 17-02-2009

To use System Restore, you'll need 200 MB of free hard disk space, which is used to store the data gathered for the restore points. If you don't have this much free space, System Restore will disable itself until the space becomes available. System Restore will create and save restore points until this space is full, and will then begin writing over itself beginning with the least recent data.

200 MB isn't a lot of room to store restore points. Allocating more space will result in better protection and performance. I'd suggest allocating the maximum amount available. To allocate more than the default 200 MB of disk space to System Restore:

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.

2. In the System Properties dialog box, on the System Restore tab, use the slider to increase the allocated disk space, and then click OK.

If you're using more than one drive on your system, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.

2. Click the drive you want to monitor, and then click Settings.

3. In the Settings dialog box, use the slider to increase the disk space, and then click OK twice.

Notice that the disk space allocated to System Restore cannot exceed 12%. If you need more space, you can run the Disk Cleanup utility to reclaim space. To open Disk Cleanup: