Minor issue - system Restore disabled - so why does the file keep growing?

[Deanodarlo]

I use norton ghost bootable cds for my "system restore" should I need it, so I don't need Win Me doing the task.

I've disabled system restore and although it's stopped backing up files using ~200mb space, the folder just keeps growing. First it was 2Mb, then 3 and now it's up to 6. Since you can't delete this thing, will it continue to grow eating up more space? I'm not bothered if it only takes up small amounts, but I might have to remove the thing completely if it continues to defy my wishes!

What is this folder backing up AFTER it's been disabled?

Thanks for your time.

 

[fkloster]

Under WinME? Mind does the same thing...I even delete the Restore file and then after a couple of days it just re appears!

 

[Shagga]

What I have found I have to do is delete the _Restore folder by booting from a Bootdisk. I then set the ATTRIB by typing at the c:\prompt, attrib -r -a- s -h. I then delete the _Restore folder/directory by using deltree c:\_restore.

It some time takes a while cos I keep forgetting to enable Smartdrive. (For all you DOS ppl)

Hey, hang on I think I have details of it somewhere.

Here you go. Sorry about the length. (No sexual inuendo intended) There is a lot of crap here!!!



<< &quot;These are 10 modifications I have made to Windows ME to gain SIGNIFICANT increase in speed, performance and security. I have tested these settings for over a month and haven't encountered any problems. After applying these tweaks my free resources increased from 95% to 99%.

Before you decide to actually give up these WinME features for the extra speed, you should read this page.

NOTE: After you read that info keep in mind that the developers and testers for these features never encountered a worm or trojan, or they would have known that PC Health and System Restore will usually reinstall a trojan, because they take your system back to the previous state, before your &quot;cleaning&quot; modifications were made. Their ideas are good, but unfortunately they don't live in the real world, and they can probably afford 1+ GHz processors and fast hard drives and don't notice the deterioration of speed compared to Win9x.


Disable System Restore + Floppy Check:
Open Control Panel -> System -> Performance Tab -> File System -> Troubleshooting area -> check the &quot;Disable System Restore&quot; box.
While in here, click the Floppy Disk tab -> uncheck the box so the system doesn't check for a NEW floppy drive every time it starts.
UPDATE: System File Protection (SFP) is a feature implemented in Windows ME which ensures that files critical to system operation are not replaced by older versions or versions not approved by Microsoft.
This means that even applications developed by Microsoft cannot replace &quot;protected&quot; files with older versions. It also means that a 3rd party product can replace system files, but only if the file ships with a catalog signed by Microsoft that references the newer file. It is important to note that SFP cannot be normally turned off without altering the Registry: see the &quot;UNINSTALL PCHEALTH&quot; topic, also in TIPSME.TXT, part of W95-11D.ZIP, for details!
I thought this was going to create problems, and sure enough this Microsoft report came out:


&quot;We did a couple of things with Windows Me that really helped solve a bunch of other issues but ended up creating temporary issues with 8 applications,&quot; said Greg Sullivan, product manager for Windows Me at Microsoft. &quot;The good news is virtually all of them have updates available, or will shortly.&quot; Basically, the problems are caused by a new feature in Windows Me: System File Protection.
This feature &quot;prevents core files from being overwritten,&quot; according to Sullivan. In the past, many outside applications overwrote certain system files, an action that Microsoft says results in a more crash-prone PC. By eliminating the ability to overwrite system files, Windows Me is less likely to crash, Sullivan says. But some application developers have not yet updated their programs to recognize this change.&quot;
I have not experienced this myself, although I do run programs from Symantec and Adaptec that are listed as having such problems.


Uninstall Pc Health:
Start -> Run -> type:

%windir%\Pchealth\Support\Pchsetup /UNINSTALL

This also REMOVES the Help engine (uninstalls Windows Help), no longer available in the Start Menu or anywhere else. There is no way of restoring Help (that I'm aware of), short of reinstalling WinME. But few people have found Help useful anyway.
Also, &quot;normal&quot; Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files still canNOT be used [WinME overwrites/deletes them upon EVERY bootup ], unless one applies the Real DOS-Mode Patch [9 KB, freeware], which modifies COMMAND.COM and IO.SYS (from C:\Windows\Command\EBD), and REGENV32.EXE (from C:\Windows\System), to allow WinME to boot to native/true MS-DOS mode, and use Autoexec.bat/Config.sys again, the Windows 95/98 style.


Turn off Automatic Updating:
This will hog your modem for the first 30 minutes every day the first time you go on line if not turned off.
Start -> Settings -> Taskbar -> Advanced -> check Expand Control Panel -> close it -> click Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Automatic Updates -> turn OFF Automatic Updating.


Disable these Start menu settings:
Start -> Run -> type:

Msconfig

and press Enter. Click the Startup tab -> UNCHECK PcHealth, StateMgr, SchedulingAgent and TaskMon. Finally reboot, so all these changes can take effect.
UPDATE: &quot;TaskMon is VITAL for monitoring the loading of programs so that they can be optimized during Defrag for faster loading. Therefore I recommend NOT disabling it.&quot;
[Thank you Guy (dr_teeth@bigfoot.com)!]


Run Windows Explorer -> click on Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> select &quot;Show hidden files and folders&quot; -> browse the C: drive -> delete the _Restore folder. Hold your Shift key so it doesn't move it to the Recycle bin while you press Del. This folder can have hundreds of megs of Temp files if you have been running WinME for a while with the system Restore and PC Health on. If you get a &quot;Sharing violation&quot; error message or if the _Restore folder reappears again in the future, you haven't successfully turned off Pc Health and System Restore.
NOTE: If you update MS IE 5.5 to enjoy the advanced Cookie control, it may (re)create the _Restore folder.

See if anything unnecessary is running all the time:
Press Ctrl + Alt + Del at the same time, after you have first booted up and see what programs are loaded. You may find several programs running that don't need to run all the time. Most of them, if actually needed, can be loaded from the Start -> Programs menu.


Don't let Windows run HTA, SHS, VB and Windows Scripts automatically:
These file associations allow viruses (like &quot;ILOVEYOU&quot; and its &quot;clones&quot to infect your system.
Open Windows Explorer -> click Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types -> delete HTA (HTML Application), SHS (Scrap Object), VBE, VBS (VB Script), JS, JSE (Java Script), WSF and WSH (Windows Script). It is very unlikely a normal PC user would need those file associations turned on.
UPDATE: To avoid deleting these file associations, which might be needed by certain programs written in MS Visual Basic Script (VBS), like developer tools, compilers, SDKs etc: open Control Panel -> Folder Options -> File Types tab -> highlight each File Type above -> click the Advanced button -> highlight Open from the &quot;Actions:&quot; list -> click the Edit button -> replace the default command line from the &quot;Application used to perform action:&quot; box with this one:

C:\Windows\Notepad.exe &quot;%1&quot; %*

DO type the quotes -> click OK -> click Close.


EVERY week:
Backup all modified files, Defrag the system, Update virus definitions and scan the whole system with Norton AntiVirus AND AntiViral Toolkit Pro. Run Ad-Aware to fight spying that at least 100 programs are known to perform. I do this mainly to save wasted bandwidth for data and ads passing back and forth.
I'm running ZoneAlarm Pro to monitor all programs and report if anything tries to access the internet. I don't like programs &quot;calling home&quot; without my permission.


WinME does not use C:\Command.com or %windir%\Win.com.
I have found that deleting these files (which are NECESSARY for Win9x) does not make any difference for WinME.
BACK THEM UP FIRST!
Many trojans and viruses target these 2 programs in order to take control and spread.


New cool DOS feature:
When in DOS mode you can recall the past commands you have run from the DOS prompt by pressing the up arrow or page up keys (DOSKEY).&quot;
UPDATE: &quot;About DOSKEY functionality installed by default:
If you look in the CMDINT.BAT file found in C:\Windows\Command you will find that DOSKEY is actually run from there. I'm not sure how much control the user has over this file though.&quot;
[Thank you Mike McCollister (MCCOLMI@mail.northgrum.com)!]

UNINSTALL PCHEALTH


Enjoy this original WinME tip courtesy of Conny Jonsson (conny@graphic-designer.com):
&quot;Here is how to permanently uninstall the PCHealth and System Restore tools from Windows ME, to be able to prevent System Restore from making new backups, AND unprotect ALL &quot;_Restore&quot; folders and files, to allow their deletion (to rid your disk of bloat files), which would be otherwise impossible.
The only disadvantage is that the Help item from Start Menu and the Windows Help system has to go too [], but you can still access Help from your applications' Help menu, or if you hit F1.


Launch Notepad, and cut &amp; paste this:

-----Begin cut &amp; paste here-----
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
&quot;NoSMHelp&quot;=hex:01,00,00,00
------End cut &amp; paste here------
Save this text file as NOHLP.REG. Double-click on it to merge this information into your Registry. Reboot.
You may also have to delete the &quot;VXDMon&quot; value from the Registry before going any further (and then reboot). Run Regedit and go to:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\VxDMon

To remove PCHealth from your system, copy the text below, paste it in the Start Menu -> Run box, and then click OK:

rundll.exe setupx.dll,InstallHinfSection Uninstall 132 %windir%\INF\PCHealth.inf
This text string is found under this Registry key:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\PCHealth
This should suffice, but some PCHealth strings are left in the Registry. They won't do any harm, but you might want them out anyway.


With Regedit open, find and delete these strings:

&quot;PCHealth&quot; from:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft

&quot;PerUser_PCHealth&quot; from:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components
and:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components
Then go to:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CLASSES\CLSID\{273380E8-1438-4B2C-95B0-713284FBC302}\ToolboxBitmap32
and delete the text content in the right hand pane.


Finally search Regedit for StateMgr.exe and delete all matching keys. Done!
This hack works fine for me and hopefully it will do the same for you, with or without any modifications to the steps above.&quot;

UPDATES:


&quot;There is a simpler way to disable System Restore alone, but this will NOT stop System Restore from creating further backups, you won't permanently get rid of this tool, and you won't be able to delete the protected &quot;_Restore&quot; directories and files. To do this: open Control Panel -> System -> Performance Tab -> Troubleshooting area -> check the &quot;Disable System Restore&quot; box.&quot;
[Thank you Ken Campbell (kgcampbell@sprint.ca)!]

&quot;If you uninstall PCHealth as described above, System File Protection will stop working. Therefore to disable PCHealth AND System Restore do as follows:

Open Control Panel -> System -> Performance Tab -> Troubleshooting area -> check the &quot;Disable System Restore&quot; box.

Open Regedit and change the RunServices State Manager item from:
&quot;*StateMgr&quot;=&quot;C:\WINDOWS\System\Restore\StateMgr.exe&quot;

to read:

&quot;Stmgr.exe&quot;=&quot;C:\WINDOWS\System\Restore\Stmgr.exe&quot;

either manually (don't type the quotes), or by running this REG file:


-----Begin cut &amp; paste here-----
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices]
&quot;Stmgr.exe&quot;=&quot;C:\\WINDOWS\\System\\Restore\\Stmgr.exe&quot;
&quot;*StateMgr&quot;=&quot;&quot;
------End cut &amp; paste here------
This will allow System File Protection ONLY to run AND protect system files from being overwritten.

You can also configure WinME to notify you when it restores replaced system files by changing the &quot;ShowPopups&quot; DWORD Value from 0 to 1 in the Decimal box, or by running this REG file:


-----Begin cut &amp; paste here-----
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SystemFileProtection]
&quot;ShowPopups&quot;=dword:00000001
------End cut &amp; paste here------
By default (&quot;ShowPopups&quot; value is 0) replaced system files are restored silently, without prompting.&quot;
[Thank you Marc S. Ragusa (Marc@ragusa.com)!]


&quot;To change the &quot;_Restore&quot; directory location, run Regedit and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\VxDMon
Change all directory listings there to point to the path of your choice.
Then open C:\Windows\System\Restore\Datastor.ini in Notepad and change the System Restore target directory location to match the one in the Registry value above.&quot;
[Thank you Roger Day (roger-day@newyorkcity.com)!]


&quot;I've made this custom &quot;tweaked&quot; Setuppp.inf file [5 KB, zipped] to avoid installing System Restore, PcHealth, MovieMaker and Windows Media Player 7 during a clean WinME Setup.
The only condition is that you need to run Setup from the C:\WIN9X directory, where you also need to copy ALL WinME Setup files from D:\WIN9X (substitute D with your CD-ROM/DVD drive letter if different).
Necessary steps:

Boot from a MS-DOS 6.xx or MS Win9x Startup floppy with real mode MS-DOS cd-rom support.
Change directory to C:
C:\
Create the new WIN9X directory on C:
MD C:\WIN9X
Copy all files from D:\WIN9X (WinME Setup CD-ROM) to C:\WIN9X:
COPY D:\WIN9X\*.* C:\WIN9X
Copy the custom-made Setuppp.inf file (saved on the same floppy) to C:\WIN9X:
COPY A:\SETUPPP.INF C:\WIN9X
Change directory to C\WIN9X:
CD\WIN9X
Run Setup.exe from there:
SETUP
No need to worry about the Setuppp.inf inside the CAB installation file, as this file will overwrite it.
The only disadvantage is that the WinME Help Engine will NOT work!
However, ALL application Help files still work: hit F1 or click Help from inside any 32-bit (Win32) program with built-in Help menu.
NOTES:

The System Restore &quot;Disk space use&quot; slider is now grayed out.

The &quot;C:\_Restore&quot; and &quot;C:\Windows\Pchealth&quot; folders are still created by Setup, but can be safely removed. >>

 

[Deanodarlo]

Thanks for the info, but will this disable system file protection (SFP) as well? I quite like this feature
EDIT - sorry, just found a seaction above detailing how to leave SFP on and disable restore

If the restore file stops growing at some point I'll just leave it on - any ideas anyone?

Thanks for your time.