restore points

2 beats 1 and I will look into Aomei.

maranna I believe you will be pleasantly surprised with Aomei. I have always been happy with the software, it's flexibility and utilities. The program is so straight forward and simple to use. Everyone should have Aomei Backupper and Macrium Reflect in their tool box.

I disagree about disabling system restore. What happens there is shadow copies are made. A restore point is just a point in time that is used to restore only certain parts. The system restore program is not entirely reliable - but the shadow copies are very useful.

You will often find things in there that are not in your images. For example if you made an image a couple of weeks ago, you will have a more recent shadow copy. It is very easy to get at them using:



That shadow ws made on 30th July - more recent than my last image.

It takes just seconds to find and copy out anything I want from that last shadow copy. It is one of the features of Windows that is widely misunderstood.

Even if you make images regularly, it is foolish to turn of system restore. Allocating even a small percentage of space for, say a couple shadows on each drive could save you a lot of angst.

ShadowCopyView - Shadow copy viewer for Windows 10/8/7/Vista

I am only just above the average user so I am confused about the information since I posted.
There is system restore with conflicting opinions, Aomei but I read some not too good reports about it. Then there is Macrium which I have had success with. Not to mention Rollback.
I will study more but at this point I may keep just a couple of restore points especially when performing a new task, use Macrium and look in to the others. I guess we all have ways of doing things compounded by varying degrees of expertise or lack of it.

@SIW2 Do you remove restore points when you create an image if you do image?

@ stich194 have you read some of the reviews about Aomei which say it can be problematic?
@

TairikuOkami May I ask, do you use Rollback or is it a suggestion?

Thanks all for your help.

One of my computers had a crash and none of the Windows advanced troubleshooting options are available using the computer or the iso. So the only option is a clean install followed by a Macrium restore. There is a USERS folder but it is approximately 6 months old.

There was a recent thread in Ten Forums in which the Macrium restore failed.

So the best option is using 3 methods:
1) system restore > this is the easiest but very often the system restore points are unavailable for the date in which you may want to go back to or there are no restore points. In addition system restore when available can simply post a fail to restore.
2) Macrium restore will restore bad drivers or malware if the backup was created when these existed. So regularly scheduling backups has a pro and con.
3) There is another method but it is time consuming. Depending on the size of the files on the drive it could take 12 or more hours. Perform a copy and paste of the USERS folder to another drive. This method can be done every 6 months or once every quarter or every month. It is one extra layer of protection.

I always do a Macrium image after a clean install and keep it in case. I then do an image every cumulative update.
I will keep a couple of restore points after a change to the registry but will still study the ideas suggested to me as a way of learning.

I have never ever had a problem with Aomei. You will find most unfavorable reviews of any consumer product is usually written by the competition