** RESOURCE: System Restore & PC Health The newest threads are listed first. Newer posts may have more current information and/or build on experience or on info from prior posts, but not always. One of the advantages of looking at prior posts instead of posting a new thread is that you’ll immediately see multiple solutions and/or conflicting advice or maybe even a lively discussion. While the best answer to some questions may always be the same, not all advice works for every system. Therefore, be cautious, especially of advice touting one-size fits-all cures for anything and everything that ails your computer. Some posters hawk software they just discovered without fully knowing it does, or even if it can harm your system. Some of these RESOURCE posts may include URLs for MS Knowledge Base articles and/or other websites; if so, they’re listed after Computing.net threads. Six digit numbers are from the Win9x forum; 5 & 4 digit numbers are from the WinME forum. For the reasons behind these posts, see RESOURCE: Introduction. Please add other resources to this post, and I’ll incorporate them in updated listings. Exceptional links (very comprehensive or having info/advice not found elsewhere) will be indicated with »double guillemets«. There was no prior RESOURCE post on System Restore. Thanks to all those who suggested posts for this resource. ============================================================ Prior Posts on System Restore & PC Health »Alternatives to; r2: Fails to acknowledge corrupted registry«/112597 Only Restore point is 30 Dec 1899/24391 Won’t Load/243259 No restore dates/21500 Not working; patch; ALL partitions need 400MB space/20815 Cannot Restore/19542 Can’t disable & keep restore points/18169 Need patch for not restoring prob/15967 Hard drive with the runs/15340 Disable v delete PCHealth/15324 HDD always being accessed/15037 »17 posts; lots of info & links/14593« No Auto-Restore points?/14455 Disabled; deleting _RESTORE/12144 Why is _RESTORE so big/10375 Fix for “Can’t Create a Restore Point”/2157 Enabling/disabling; _Restore FILE/295 MS KB 267952: Description of PCHealth MS KB 267951: Description of System Restore MS KB 2253571: Description of System File Protection MS KB 306768: Troubleshooting System Restore PacsPortal; StartUp items Houston Chronicle fix for “Can’t Create a Restore Point” ============================================================ Renaissance Man’s 2¢ Worth: I disabled System Restore and PC Health about a year and a half ago (with no problems since). Here’ why: ● They’re memory and space hogs. Your hard drive is always being accessed and nibbled to death. Both the _RESTORE folder and the PCHealth (sub-)folder(s) accumulate enormous amounts of data. ● Since it doesn’t always work when you need it (as you can see from the posts above), it gives you a false sense of security. ● Although it is NOT the same as System Restore, you do have 5 backups (the default number) of your registry; use Scanregw /restore. ● Those that seem to like it most are those who tweak WinME until it no longer works. If you don’t do foolish things, you are much less likely to need it. ● IMHO, once you tweak WinME to your liking and it’s fairly stable, the benefits of further tweaking, real or imagined, are far less than disabling System Restore and PC Health. One person reported that “After a clean install with no software, I was noticing a lot of nonsense going on: slowdowns, short pauses on the net, etc. I couldn’t take it; after disabling system restore my system was running perfectly again.” I am NOT recommending that you disable System Restore and/or PC Heath! (Some claim it saved them from what would have otherwise been a disaster.) But, if you want to, here’s how: ● In Control Panel, System Properties, Performance Tab, File System Properties button, Troubleshooting Tab, check “Disable System Restore”. ● In Control Panel, Scheduled Tasks, disable or delete the PCHealth entry. Somehow, even with System Restore disabled, the _RESTORE folder continues to fill up. The next two steps stop that from happening. ● Go to DOS using a StartUp Disk. At the prompt, type deltree c:\_RESTORE. Answer y at the prompt. ● At the prompt, type echo This is a Dummy File > c:\_RESTORE. ● In Start/Run, type msconfig, click on the Startup tab. Uncheck *StateMgr and PCHealth. ● After you reboot, you’ll see “You are using Selective Startup...”; Click on “Don’t show this dialogue again.” ============================================================ Computing.net is where each of us helps all of us to move the goal posts.

Addendum:. After • At the prompt, type echo This is a Dummy File > c:\_RESTORE. Add • Turn all file attributes on:attrib c:\_RESTORE +r +a +s +h. ============================================================