I’m not sure why you need to restore back to November 1st, but let’s see what we can do to find System Restore for you.
System Restore
The easiest way to get to System Restore is through your All Programs. If this is how you are already doing it, bear with me just in case something is missing.
- Go to Start, then click on All Programs.
- Click on Accessories and choose System Tools.
- Click on System Restore. You will see the Welcome screen. Click on ‘Restore my computer to an earlier time.’ Click Next.
- You will see a Select a Restore Point page where you will select a date. Click Next.
- You will confirm the date and click Next. The system will shut down and reboot where you should get a ‘Restoration Complete’ message.
This is the standard way to get into System Restore. If you can’t find System Restore using these steps, let us know which part is missing and we should be able to help you.
You can also get into System Restore by going to Start and then clicking on Run. At the prompt, type in: scanreg /restore (there is a space between scanreg and /). Click OK and then pick an earlier date.
One more way to find System Restore is to go to Start and then Run and typing in regedit at the prompt. Click Enter. Navigate to: HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\System Restore. Look for Value DisableSR. If it is set to ‘1′, double click on it to set it to ‘0′.
Missing Restore Points
Can you find System Restore, but not your restore points? The Restore Point you want may be hidden. When in the Select a Restore Point page, make sure you have a check mark in the box that says, “Show restore points older than five days.”
Newer machines set restore points by default, but they will disappear if you run out of space on the system drive. It will delete all restore points in an attempt to free up space. You would have received a disk-space warning before the restore points were deleted. Once disk space is freed up, System Restore will start setting restore points again.
Likewise, depending on the storage limits set aside for specifically for restore points, once the space fills up, older restore points are deleted and replaced with new ones. You won’t receive a warning in this scenario.
Did you upgrade or install a new operating system? If you did, the restore points on the old system are automatically deleted and you can’t return to the old system to get them back.
If for some reason System Restore is completely missing on your computer, it is likely caused by a virus or .dll error. Are you getting any .dll error messages? That is another fix entirely, so let us know if you are.
After all of this, if your System Restore is still missing, you may need to manually adjust the problem, or if the problem is severe enough, reinstall your Windows operating system and start over.
Kat Delong | November 21st, 2008
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