Windows randomly deletes restore points

Cerawy · 03 Sep 2017

Windows seems to be randomly deleting system restore points, including the ones i created manually. Windows also seems to be creating new system restore points that doesnt work. Is it possible to prevent windows from deleting system restore points that i have created, and how do i prevent windows from creating system restore points that doesnt work?

Solved by using aomei backupper instead of microsofts solution. ✔

dalchina · 04 Sep 2017

Are you dual booting? That's a common reason. Have you allocated enough disk space?

Please search the forum for
restore points disappearing
restore points lost
etc

and you will find many results which may help you. Please have a look then come back if your question is not resolved saying what you have considered.

Windows randomly deletes restore points-1.jpg

Cerawy · 05 Oct 2017

I'm not dual booting and I have about 137GB left. I will try and see if any of the threads has a solution. I didn't know the problem was so widespread.

Edit, so I just checked the amount of disk space usage for system protection. It's set to 4% (10GB). Is that enough?

lx07 · 05 Oct 2017

Upgrading to a new version of Windows (like Anniversary to Creators for example) turns of system protection and deletes all restore points. A bit annoying but there is nothing to be done about that unless Microsoft stops doing it which (most likely) they will not.

Assuming you haven't upgraded and you are losing old restore points then this is normal once the space allocated is reached - it will drop old ones. Whether 10GB is enough depends on how much you install/remove software or otherwise change data in the protected files.

For me that would be enough for probably 5 or 10 (the first one being by far the biggest generally).

If you want to make a restore point that will never be deleted then you can't. It isn't really the intended use I don't think - more to revert to a last know good state before you did something by mistake or tested installing some software.

If you want a permanent snapshot it would be better to make a system image. You can use the soon to be dropped built in one in Control Panel > File History > System Image Backup or use some other program like Macrium.

dalchina · 05 Oct 2017

Cerawy said:

I'm not dual booting and I have about 137GB left. I will try and see if any of the threads has a solution. I didn't know the problem was so widespread.

Edit, so I just checked the amount of disk space usage for system protection. It's set to 4% (10GB). Is that enough?

As you note, there's a disk limit. The most recent restore points are retained and older ones deleted, as @lx07 says. If that's not what you're seeing, then research may help you.

Note that if enough restore points aren't being created or not frequently enough you can schedule restore point creation (a tutorial refers). I have this set up... some had difficulty with this and Brink modified a script to help as I recall. (I still use an old one).

Note: don't only rely on system restore. It can fail to restore when you want it to- nor is it a complete solution as only certain things are protected.

Cerawy · 05 Oct 2017

lx07 said:

Upgrading to a new version of Windows (like Anniversary to Creators for example) turns of system protection and deletes all restore points. A bit annoying but there is nothing to be done about that unless Microsoft stops doing it which (most likely) they will not.

Why is microsoft deleting my system restore points without my permision?

lx07 said:

Assuming you haven't upgraded and you are losing old restore points then this is normal once the space allocated is reached - it will drop old ones. Whether 10GB is enough depends on how much you install/remove software or otherwise change data in the protected files.

I have changed it to 10% (23GB) to see if it works. But I think it would be best if windows only saved the manual restore points that I create myself, is there any way to do this?

lx07 said:

If you want a permanent snapshot it would be better to make a system image. You can use the soon to be dropped built in one in Control Panel > File History > System Image Backup or use some other program like Macrium.

I just tried to create a system image but it says the drive is not a valid destination.

f14tomcat · 05 Oct 2017

Cerawy said:

Why is microsoft deleting my system restore points without my permision?

I have changed it to 10% (23GB) to see if it works. But I think it would be best if windows only saved the manual restore points that I create myself, is there any way to do this?

I just tried to create a system image but it says the drive is not a valid destination.

If you tried to create the image on C:, that's why the error message. Windows won't allow you to backup an image of itself onto itself (Same drive/partition). Wouldn't make any sense even if they did. You couldn't recover from an image you can't get to. Direct the output to an external drive, or another Internal drive other than the one you boot from.

As stated above, Macrium is probably a better solution for you than native Windows Backup. MS is discontinuing their backup (SIB) in the next release (less than 2 weeks).

alexncfc · 05 Oct 2017

f14tomcat said:

As stated above, Macrium is probably a better solution for you than native Windows Backup. MS is discontinuing their backup (SIB) in the next release (less than 2 weeks).

Sorry to hijack this post but I have been unable to find anything about MS ditching system image backup, is this definitely happening in the next 10 release?? Are they not introducing any new backup tools??

lx07 · 05 Oct 2017

alexncfc said:

Sorry to hijack this post but I have been unable to find anything about MS ditching system image backup, is this definitely happening in the next 10 release?? Are they not introducing any new backup tools??

No they aren't removing it yet.

It is "deprecated" in the fall release which means "not in active development and might be removed in future releases" (unless they change their mind presumably).

See features that are removed or deprecated in windows 10 fall creators update

f14tomcat · 05 Oct 2017

alexncfc said:

Sorry to hijack this post but I have been unable to find anything about MS ditching system image backup, is this definitely happening in the next 10 release?? Are they not introducing any new backup tools??

lx07 said:

No they aren't removing it yet.

It is "deprecated" in the fall release which means "not in active development and might be removed in future releases" (unless they change their mind presumably).

See features that are removed or deprecated in windows 10 fall creators update

This is kinda the key phrase there. Get used to something else, Like Macrium....

System Image Backup (SIB) Solution
We recommend that users use full-disk backup solutions from other vendors.