System Restore : One of the Finest Microsoft Upgrades Ever

Long before Windows 7 (with System Restore capacity) came along, Microsoft had come in for its share of insults. For more than two decades now, it's been call the tech, call the tech, curse, curse, curse, replace the computer.

Until last October. At that point, I had two laptops, neither of which would even start up. One ran on Windows Vista, the other on Windows XP...when they ran, which they hadn't for a while. One had seized up because I made the mistake of continuing to type in Pam's presence when she was emotionally volatile--which happens from time to time with a bipolar schizophrenic redhead. The girl's got powers, and the XP was history.

I forget what caused the Vista machine to go wicky-wacky.

What to do?

Wal-Mart. New machine, in fact a super-cool up-to-date e-machine with loads of disk space...and Windows 7. The only really weird thing about it was the absolute lack of an operating manual; the unit was accompanied by a Quick Start card, and that was it.

Okay, we all know any computer is going to get messed up sooner or later. In the past, that always meant either taking the critter to a tech who usually messed it up worse or, of late, calling a really cool dude in Colorado who actually knew what he was doing.

That all changed with System Restore, a self-fix I didn't even know existed until It was actually needed. Today (July 28, 2011) I had to run System Restore for the third or possibly the fourth time since I've owned it, i.e. the past nine months.

Note: If you who read this page know something about all this that I don't, please feel to upgrade my personal awareness circuits. I'm somewhat guessing at how this works.

But work it does. So far, every time. The 'puter will pick up something nasty from the Internet, glitch up the entire system...and System Restore will save the day.

Let's look at how that worked this afternoon.

I knew when the Ugly Bug came to town. It was late last night, researching news articles for a Hub. Clicking on one page yielded a brightly colored warning from the security software that this page contained a threat. The threat had supposedly been blocked, but when I clicked on "move to vault", the screen admitted it couldn't do that--the invader had either gotten away or maybe just hidden where it couldn't be found.

This program had never before had to admit that a Nasty had even "possibly" slipped through its defenses in a frontal assault.

So I ran a scan, which did find one Plug Ugly, which it sucessfully corraled and chucked into virus jail on the spot. The computer never stopped performing flawlessly; when it came time to shut down for the night, all seemed right with our personal cyberworld.

Until today, when the computer and modem were powered up. The modem lights were acting extremely funky. Sure enough, couldn't access the Internet. Windows 7 diagnostics checked for problems. Modem connectivity problem, the screen said. Shut down, let the modem rest, fire back up. Tried that, no joy.

In fact, I was reaching for the address book to call our Internet service provider when the screen suddenly announced it was looking for a completely different set of problems, this time in the computer rather than in the modem. Then came a shocker, an announcement that the 'puter did not have a valid IP address registered!

At that point, being no dummy, I knew the score for sure.: Last night's Ugly Bunny had gotten inside.

I waited. The diagnostics finished running. "Might be able to fix this via System Restore", the screen said (or words to that effect).

Go for it. One click, and away ya go!

What System Restore does? It resets the computer so that it contains exactly those programs and settings it possessed at some point prior to the manifestation of the problem the user is experiencing. Data is not lost; that's left untouched. But newer programs go bye-bye during the Restoring process.

Which is fine with me.

Now, here's where the process inspired this Hub today: Until System Restore started to run, no more than 3 of the 5 modem lights would be on at the same time. Yet the Restoration was barely underway when I noticed all 5 lights were on together much of the time--Situation Normal.

I knew then that we had a fix.

Today is July 28, 2011. System Restore decided to reset (Restore) the system to where it had been as of July 12, 2011. Whatever glitched after that date is...gone.

Sure enough, as soon as System Restore was done doing its thing (which took mere minutes) and the e-machine rebooted, I was able to call up a browser and--bingo! Instant Internet!

So far, this marvelous Microsoft upgrade has saved me countless hours of frustration, likely hundreds of dollars in computer repair bills that don't repair the computer, and possibly even the anguish of having to replace yet another PC when there's not even any money in the budget right now for printer ink.

Bottom line, why did I write this Hub? Because I could...thanks to System Restore.