Harriett wrote:
>I have heard from many sources that doing a system restore doe  NOT take
>up your memory, but I was told by Dell quite some time ago that it  does, and
>that's the reason I never wanted to do one. >>


Are you perhaps confusing memory with hard drive space. I can hardly think 
that a tech would tell you that using SR takes up memory.  Strictly, this 
is true, as the Restore Service is running, but it is purely passive, and 
would consume virtually no memory resources. SR does, however, consume a 
certain amount of disk storage space.

In these days of large hard drives, the space taken up by SR is relatively 
minimal.  However, it should be used intelligently.  Although some people 
elect not to use it, I've found that for most people SR does serve a useful 
if rather limited, purpose and can be a lifesaver in some cases.

1. My own recommendation is that, unless space on your C-Drive is 
critically low, it is best to set SR to its default of 12% , though many 
people reduce this to a lower figure. This means that the lower the figure, 
the more limited periods you have to choose from. At say 5% you probably 
can't restore back much more than a month if you are lucky.

2. There is not much point in having SR active on drives other than the one 
on which XP is installed, therefore I suggest disabling it for all drives 
other than your C-Drive. As long as you retain all your program 
installation disks and files, it's more satisfactory to reinstall an errant 
program than to rely on to fix it for you, and usually quicker.

To make System Restore settings, go into Control Panel/System and click the 
Restore tag.

SR makes copies of the registry plus all executory files.

Having said all that, SR can sometimes be a pain to use. Sometimes it won't 
complete the restore process, and it can sometimes be a bit flaky. However, 
I've never seen a case where it hasn't been able to recover itself from a 
failed restore process, so it's safe enough to use. Don't rely on it 100%, 
but it often works very well as a quick fix when other remedies have failed.

I much prefer regular registry backups with ERU---they usually have much 
the same effect as SR, are 10 times quicker and easier, and you can keep 
them forever. Most problems are due to registry corruptions. See tutorial 
on my website if you're not familiar with this.

Don Penlington


 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery,  and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html 

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