Win11 users, you might want to check your system restore settings

[mikeymikec]

This is on a brand new Win11 Pro install, 256GB SSD:



Facepalm.

 

[OlyAR15]

I don’t see an issue…

 

[Muadib]

I don’t see an issue…

Me either. I checked mine, and just like mikey's, it was on by default.

 

[mikeymikec]

The max usage indicator is basically at zero. If you turn it up, it will tell you how much will be allocated.

There should be some system restore data already in there as it's installed some Windows updates and drivers, but its current usage says zero. That slider control can only be turned down to 1% (which on a 250GB drive would be about 2.25GB), so if it was working as intended then there ought to be some data in there. So system restore is on, but it's not on.

 

[OlyAR15]

Windows doesn't make a restore point every time there is a change. If it's a fresh install, it just means that Windows hasn't made a restore point. You can do it manually, but I don't see a point if it's just a fresh install. Again, I really don't see an issue here. You just seem to be creating more FUD than anything. So I take it that you are just one of these Win11 haters that like to bag on anything you seem different?

As an example, here is mine on my Surface Book 2:

 

[mikeymikec]

@OlyAR15

Take a look at your list of restore points (run rstrui if you want a quick way to see them). Windows updates and driver updates are the most common reasons for restore points to be automatically created, and obviously when you do a clean WIndows install, a fair few drivers are installed (automatically or manually). IIRC Windows Installer transactions tend to trigger auto-restore point creations too.

I don't appreciate your accusation. It's baseless. And "you might want to check your system restore settings" is hardly FUD.

Your screenshot looks completely normal, see 'current usage' and the allocation figures below the slider.

 

[WilliamM2]

He's right, his max usage is set to zero, which you can't do if it's enabed.

Personally I like it, as it's the first thing I disable, and Windows likes to randomly re-enable it.

But when working on someone else's system, I don't disable it. and would see this as an issue.

 

[tcsenter]

Just received a new laptop with W10. Applied all Windows Updates, which included several drivers. Afterwards I was checking through some things and found System Restore configuration slider was set to 0%, with nothing specified for 'currently used'. So I don't think Windows will create restore points if the slider is set to 0%. i.e. it is effectively disabled

 

[mikeymikec]

Just received a new laptop with W10. Applied all Windows Updates, which included several drivers. Afterwards I was checking through some things and found System Restore configuration slider was set to 0%, with nothing specified for 'currently used'. So I don't think Windows will create restore points if the slider is set to 0%. i.e. it is effectively disabled

One thing I've noticed with Win10 is that it completely disables system restore if you have a 128GB SSD (or less) presumably). What storage does yours have?

 

[tcsenter]

One thing I've noticed with Win10 is that it completely disables system restore if you have a 128GB SSD (or less) presumably). What storage does yours have?

256GB

 

[mikeymikec]

256GB

I'm wondering what's going on then. I think I would have noticed this before (my install routine on customers' computers - typically 250GB SSDs - includes increasing the system restore percentage to 10%), so has an update come in to change this? Its remit must be a bit strange though, perhaps it only is applied to systems that aren't already using x% of their system restore quota?

I'm thinking this has to be a bug (if it was intentional, then why not just disable SR completely; leaving it enabled and setting it to zero is completely unintuitive). I've got another Win11 build to do shortly, I'll check its system restore quota before updates are completed, and then check it after the first load of updates have come in.

 

[UsandThem]

Window updates always breaks / changes something.

I've lost count on how many times an update deleted something like system restore or scheduled disk optimizations. I'm pretty good checking my personal computer after updates so I can quickly restore any broken settings.

When I get into my wife's and children's computers every once and a while to make sure it's up to date / look for issues, the weekly optimization would be turned off, with it not running sometimes for 150+ days.

 

[tcsenter]

I'm wondering what's going on then. I think I would have noticed this before (my install routine on customers' computers - typically 250GB SSDs - includes increasing the system restore percentage to 10%), so has an update come in to change this? Its remit must be a bit strange though, perhaps it only is applied to systems that aren't already using x% of their system restore quota?

This was OEM pre-install OBE, not a clean/custom install. IIRC, the OEM can indeed configure features like System Restore in their system images, but I'm not sure what has happened in my particular case.

 

[mikeymikec]

Window updates always breaks / changes something.

I've lost count on how many times an update deleted something like system restore or scheduled disk optimizations. I'm pretty good checking my personal computer after updates so I can quickly restore any broken settings.

When I get into my wife's and children's computers every once and a while to make sure it's up to date / look for issues, the weekly optimization would be turned off, with it not running sometimes for 150+ days.

Huh. The only two things I've seen to switch off disk optimisations are:

- Security products (e.g. Norton) / scams
- The Win10 upgrade process on Win7 followed by reverting to Win7 sometimes completely trashed the scheduled tasks.

You might want to check that disk optimisations scheduling is enabled (I assume you do Start > search for 'defrag'), then close the app and check it immediately again. Sometimes if the scheduled task responsible has been trashed, then it will allow you to re-enable scheduled defrag but it won't save the UI setting change, so the next time you open the app it shows up as 'off' again. The other thing to check is the scheduled task responsible for defragging and see if nothing weird is going on there.

@tcsenter - the reason for the OP was a clean install by me so IMO it's not an OEM thing (I don't think the reset feature is at all affected by SR's settings btw). I haven't seen OEMs messing with SR, though admittedly I don't religiously check every OEM install like I do my own.

 

[mikeymikec]

Hum. I just did a clean install on a virtually identical (only difference being the processor) PC, installed Win11, disconnected the moment that it wanted to check for updates during setup (MS account avoidance), and right now it says that system restore is disabled. I purposefully cancelled my way out of that as I want to see how this progresses after updates.

- edit - after updates, SR was enabled and the quota was set to 4% as I'd normally expect it to be. ~400MB of data stored in SR at that point. That weakens the last theory I had, unless this is one of those weird 'people manually doing a Windows Update check at the end of a month get less mature updates than those at the start of the month' situations.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Maybe this is how things are with Windows 11 now.

 

[Super Spartan]

Window updates always breaks / changes something.

I've lost count on how many times an update deleted something like system restore or scheduled disk optimizations. I'm pretty good checking my personal computer after updates so I can quickly restore any broken settings.

When I get into my wife's and children's computers every once and a while to make sure it's up to date / look for issues, the weekly optimization would be turned off, with it not running sometimes for 150+ days.

I tune/tweak the laptops that we sell at my company and what I've come to notice recently is that System restore is disabled by default on Windows 11 and these are OEM installs from laptops from the likes of MSI, ASUS, Dell so I always enable it after all the tweaks and updates are done, set a restore point, then do another full image using Macrium Reflect in case the system restore didn't work (which it rarely does)

 

[jimt1911]

My disk space usage was set at 2% (10.00 GB), I increased setting to 5% (23.81 GB). A recent restore point got me out of a bind a few days ago.

 

[WelshBloke]

Just set up a win11 Vbox.

"System protection is turned off"

 

[AdamK47]

Thanks for reminding me. I usually check to see if it's still off since Microsoft thinks it knows best and likes to turn it back on for me through OS updates.

Thankfully it's still off. Whew!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Thankfully it's still off. Whew!

Bad experience with it?

 

[AdamK47]

Bad experience with it?

I do regular backups with Acronis on demand. System Restore eats CPU.

 

[A///]

I do regular backups with Acronis on demand. System Restore eats CPU.

In my experience system restore has never ever been reliable. Very problematic anytime I've relied on it. Much like you I prefer system images. What do you like about Acronis over Macrium or Paragon?

 

[AdamK47]

In my experience system restore has never ever been reliable. Very problematic anytime I've relied on it. Much like you I prefer system images. What do you like about Acronis over Macrium or Paragon?

It has worked for me for many years. Don't see a reason to change.

 

[A///]

It has worked for me for many years. Don't see a reason to change.

I have a very old version which is probably useless by now. I looked at them just now and it seems to be a saas product now??? $50 a year is steep for something that may be used once or twice a year.