Problems With System Restore

Sep 18, 2006

I recently mentioned the stuttering problems I was seeing in some games (Half-Life 2 to be precise), and my attempts to fix it with nForce 4 drivers and a fix from AMD. One of these changes, strangely enough, has made my computer run hotter (the graphics card now reaches up to 50 degrees under load, which is still somewhat cooler than my previous card, but warm nonetheless).

Before installing the nForce 4 drivers, I created a restore point using Microsoft's System Restore. And, after I noticed the heat problems, I tried to go back to the state the machine was in before I did the driver install. But restoring to my saved point doesn't work! After a reboot, Windows reports that it was "unable to restore to the previous point" and that nothing has been changed. I'm not exactly sure why I tried System Restore, because it has never worked for me before. Has anyone else ever gotten this thing to work? As far as I can tell, it's completely useless.

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5 Comments

kip

12:37 PM on Sep 18, 2006
That has been my experience. It failed to pull through for me twice, long ago, and since then I always disable it as soon as I install Windows.

enc

7:33 AM on Sep 19, 2006
You can try using "Rollback driver..." option in device's properties dialog window.

Jonah

3:24 PM on Sep 19, 2006
I saw that option, Enc. Thankfully, I decided to use the nVidia driver uninstall program instead (it worked quite well, actually).

IncludeMeOut

12:17 AM on Oct 3, 2006
I, too have had System Restore fail. Somewhere in the SR instructions it was not-so-clearly-stated that if you had EVER had a virus that SR would fail to restore. It suggested that you should turn off SR and reboot to erase all restore points. I did so, did a virus scan, rebooted, then re-enabled SR, rebooted again, and created a restore point. I test drove it by immediately rebooting yet again and attempted a SR. It worked! I thought the problem was solved. It was not. A week or so later, just for drill, I attempted a SR. It failed. SR, for me, is worthless. Now, I have always kept my Norton Antivirus up-to-date, scan regularly, plus Earthlink catches most of them anyway, so I doubt that I have ever even had a virus. I believe that SR is buggy. Or it may be the unsigned driver syndrome.

IncludeMeOut

3:05 PM on Oct 3, 2006
did a little more thinking about what might be ditching SR. Norton & Microsoft apparently have a little spat going. I recently downloaded Windows Defender from Microsoft's web site, installed it, and it immediately corrupted Norton.exe ( the engine for Norton Utiliies Integrator). Now this was just recently and it had nothing to do with my much-earlier and ongoing problems with System Restore but it is symptomatic of a larger problem wherein, wittingly or unwittingly, Microsoft is not in full sync with Norton (or vice-versa). In other words, SR may think Norton software is unapproved, alien, or somehow harmful and balks at restoring a system equipped with certain of Norton's products. I am not a conspiracy nut but Norton's GoBack is a competing piece of software to SR and MicroSoft, through SR, may be at odds over some sort of licensing fee. It's the end-user that gets caught in the middle.

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