Does System Restore slows down windows?

[Battousai001]

I decided to use System Restore and created a restore point, Im wondering if System Restore slows down the system when it is turned on. I just made a restore point.

I know that system restore is not that much useful whenever the system is broken down by a virus (cause it also restores viruses) but how useful really is system restore?

 

[KoolDrew]

I don't use it as if I have a problem I troubleshoot it myself but if you are not that confident that you can solve the problem do NOT disable System Restore. It will just take up a bit of disk space for restore points.

 

[Andyman53]

System Restore is succeptible to ad-aware and spyware and in most cases can infect the system. I'd disable it for the reason and that reason only. Its intentions were good, just its implementation poor. Thats the life story of M$.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Andyman53
System Restore is succeptible to ad-aware and spyware and in most cases can infect the system. I'd disable it for the reason and that reason only. Its intentions were good, just its implementation poor. Thats the life story of M$.

Evidence please. What you said makes absolutely no sense.

I have used system restore a couple times out of necessity, it was a lifesaver. However, it breaks things when it restores other things. So it's not full-proof yet.

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Andyman53
System Restore is succeptible to ad-aware and spyware and in most cases can infect the system. I'd disable it for the reason and that reason only. Its intentions were good, just its implementation poor. Thats the life story of M$.

Evidence please. What you said makes absolutely no sense.

I have used system restore a couple times out of necessity, it was a lifesaver. However, it breaks things when it restores other things. So it's not full-proof yet.

If malware is present on a machine and a restore point is made then that malware would be included in the restore point.

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Andyman53
System Restore is succeptible to ad-aware and spyware and in most cases can infect the system. I'd disable it for the reason and that reason only. Its intentions were good, just its implementation poor. Thats the life story of M$.

Evidence please. What you said makes absolutely no sense.

I have used system restore a couple times out of necessity, it was a lifesaver. However, it breaks things when it restores other things. So it's not full-proof yet.

If malware is present on a machine and a restore point is made then that malware would be included in the restore point.

Here are some links that demonstrate this:
http://www.thiel.edu/Admin/CIS/spyware_virus.htm
http://antivirus.about.com/od/...cs/a/systemrestore.htm

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Andyman53
System Restore is succeptible to ad-aware and spyware and in most cases can infect the system. I'd disable it for the reason and that reason only. Its intentions were good, just its implementation poor. Thats the life story of M$.

Evidence please. What you said makes absolutely no sense.

I have used system restore a couple times out of necessity, it was a lifesaver. However, it breaks things when it restores other things. So it's not full-proof yet.

If malware is present on a machine and a restore point is made then that malware would be included in the restore point.

But that's the point to using system restore. Restoring to BEFORE you got hit. If you can't fix the malware, then this may be the only solution. But whether you can fix it or not means nothing in terms of the reasons to use it.

 

[KoolDrew]

There is never any malware that cannot be fixed. Some may be a challenge but are still fixable.

 

[mysticfm]

Originally posted by: Andyman53
System Restore is succeptible to ad-aware and spyware and in most cases can infect the system. I'd disable it for the reason and that reason only. Its intentions were good, just its implementation poor. Thats the life story of M$.

The problem with this statement is it suggests that having System Restore enabled makes a computer more vulnerable to malware infections. System Restore does no such thing. The only problem with System Restore regarding malware is that you may have to temporarily disable it to get rid of a spyware or virus infection that makes it onto your system via the usual means.

Originally posted by: timswim78
Here are some links that demonstrate this:

Both of those links precisely demonstrate my point: they talk about the wisdom of disabling System Restore when removing a virus or spyware infection. They do not advise disabling System Restore as a preventative measure ... indeed both articles advise re-enabling System Restore as soon as the infection has been cleared out.

Keeping System Restore disabled on a permanent basis offers exactly ZERO additional protection against malware infections, and merely serves to deprive the user of an otherwise useful system recovery tool.

 

[ColKurtz]

Gotta agree with mysticfm. If you keed your system locked down you shouldn't be getting many viruses/trojans anyway, but in the event that you do *then* disable system restore before disinfecting. For many other non-virus problems, system restore is a great way to avoid spending a few hours of manually troubleshooting a sytem crash. I would be a lot less confident about trying new programs or registry tweaks if I didn't have system restore.

Keeping it disabled b/c you might create a virus-infected restore point is like saying don't go to the doctor b/c he might tell you you're sick .

 

[Battousai001]

I think it is simple.. just create a restore point after checking your system and that it is free from any infestation. and in any case that their will be problems in the future just revert back to the most safest restore point you manually set.

 

[RVN]

The overhead associated with system restore is mostly in the form of the space that it takes up on your hard drive. It's better to have it than not have anything. Depending on what goes awry it may not perform as expected.

Using an imaging software like True Image or Ghost is far superior to system restore. As long as you get a pristine image of your install and regularly backup your data -you're bullet-proof. It'll even save you in the event of a hard drive failure. If you even suspect you've got some spyware, virus or worm ...just re-image. In fact, re-imaging is much faster than cleaning your history, internet cache, temps, junk etc..., running a registry scanner, doing a check disk, running a spyware detector, running a virus scan and/or defragging!

 

[KoolDrew]

Using an imaging software like True Image or Ghost is far superior to system restore. As long as you get a pristine image of your install and regularly backup your data -you're bullet-proof. It'll even save you in the event of a hard drive failure. If you even suspect you've got some spyware, virus or worm ...just re-image. In fact, re-imaging is much faster than cleaning your history, internet cache, temps, junk etc..., running a registry scanner, doing a check disk, running a spyware detector, running a virus scan and/or defragging!

I agree for the same reason malak stated.

 

[joelslaw]

In my experience, it is quite useful. sure, as was mentioned above, it's not going to magicly fix all your problems, but it will prevent you from screwing yourself over!

You ever get that feeling that you've just done something terribly stupid to your OS? (usually for me this, in some way, involves the registry or my system files, as I like to play with both) And then you get that gut-wrenching feeling, when upon the next (failed) boot-up your suspicion is confirmed. With windows 98 my solution to these types of problems a lot of times included some variation of the sentence "It's nothing a reinstall won't fix" and/or 3 hours of "repair work". But thanks to the system restore I've been able to keep XP reinstals and "repair time" to a minimum So basiclly if you wanna tweak stuff and not have to worry about the consiquences: system restore is for you!