System protection and sytem restore

[Great Lake Bunyip]

Much to my surprise I have found that system restore is turned off on the 5 computers I have recently upgraded from 1909 to 2004. It was turned on before the install took place. The 5 computers were 3 HP laptops, 1 Toshiba laptop and 1 home built.

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gwilki

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[PKCano]

System Restore has always been turned of by default with a version upgrade. You can count on it being off afterward every time.

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Great Lake Bunyip

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[Great Lake Bunyip]

PKCano wrote:

System Restore has always been turned of by default with a version upgrade. You can count on it being off afterward every time.

I am shocked that it is turned off by default! Why is this done? My sincere thanks for your reply.

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[PKCano]

I suppose they think of it as a whole new OS.
You wouldn’t expect System Restore to work if you upgrade Win7 to Win10. There would be no purpose b/c it wouldn’t work on Win10 to replace its system files and Registry with those from Win7.
Think of a version upgrade in that way.

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Great Lake Bunyip

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[WCHS]

Should you turn System Protection back on after a version update?

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[Paul T]

Turn it back on of you think you will use it, or just backup.

cheers, Paul

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[Moonshine]

Below is what I posted sometime ago (I think in the ‘WindowsSectrets’ Forum) regarding the issue of System Restore being turned off.

I can’t recall ever having System Restore turned off after a minor or major (Feature) update.
Yet many users are reporting the exact opposite in that it happens to them, after every major update, for reasons unknown.
It’s likely to be something on the machine that has caused the turning off of SR. Perhaps a setting, space available, something installed or how the OS was installed – I don’t know. Maybe it was never on at the point of Upgrading.

System Restore, it’s a flawed process and has been for years in my opinion. There are so many variables that can make it fail. I haven’t been able to get it to work on this machine for over 3 years (I have tried all possible solutions to get round this). I certainly can’t rely on it working when I want it to.
I do know that if I did a clean install of Windows, it would miraculously start to work which perhaps reinforces the theory that it might be something that ‘I’m’ (others are) doing habitually, but inadvertently, somewhere down the line to cause the failures.

AntiVirus is often quoted as being the problem. Windows often reports, after a SR failure, that it is highly like to be an AntiVirus program running in the background.
I’ve ran Windows in machines for test purposes in the past with no AntiVirus installed and any inbuilt security totally disabled yet that error re the AV still can show after a SR failure.

Here’s a link to someone asking the question to a Windows MVP: Is system restore turned on by default in the Windows 10 creators update?.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install-winpc/is-system-restored-turned-on-by-default-in-the/e7ab8412-aa57-43ee-a619-a558f25ac6bc

We cannot say with certainty it is turned off by Default, only that the version Update removes all Restore points which doesn’t mean it needs to turn it off.

I polled MVP’s about this recently and it was split evenly between enabled/disabled in v.1703. So there is likely something else at play including possibly how the Upgrade was done, or whether it had been turned on before version upgrade.

Either way one should regularly check that System Restore is enabled on C with plenty of disk space apportioned (5-10% normally) as this is the first line of defence with problems in Windows, and when Windows won’t start via Advanced Startup Options.

I’d advise anyone and everyone not to rely on System Restore as I’m sure it will let them down at some point. That point maybe when you need it the most.
System Images are advantageous. Downside is they take much longer to deploy than a SR, but they have always worked in my experience. But then again – there are those that have had Image Restore failures.

Incidentally, I never have System Restore tuned on these days. But after a recent version upgrade, the System Restore was turned back on! – work that one out.

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