The other day I discussed backing up the registry, and restoring it if Windows got messed up after installing a program. Today I installed a Microsoft hotfix that didn’t work, restoring the registry didn’t work, and gave an error instead. The hotfix did not show up in my program list, so it I wasn’t able to uninstall it, but I wanted to remove it completely. What next? Fortunately for Windows Vista users Microsoft created System Restore to address this exact situation. Here’s how to use System Restore. Click the windows button in the bottom left corner of your screen, then click Control Panel.

Click System and Maintenance.

Click Backup and Restore Center.

Now scroll to the bottom of the window and click Use System Restore to fix problems and undo changes to Windows.

There is a faster and easier way to start System Restore. Click the windows button in the bottom left corner of your screen, then click Run. Now type in either rstrui or rstrui.exe, and hit enter.

System Restore creates restore points automatically, and recommends them. I won’t discuss choosing a different restore point in this article. Since I used System Restore right after I installed the hotfix the restore point was the exact point that I wanted to restore my system to. Click Next.

After confirming the restore point is correct click finish. The compter will reboot, and work its magic. Don’t unplug or try to stop the restore process, which continues after your machine reboots.

Once the System Restore is completed you will see a success message.

Just in case the System Restore made unwanted changes, the option exists to Undo System Restore. To start the undo process go through the directions above or just type rstrui into the run command line.

System Restore affects Windows system files, programs, and registry settings. It also can make changes to scripts, batch files, and other types of executable files on your computer. It does not affect personal files, such as e?mail, documents, or photos, so it cannot help you restore a deleted file. I’ll discuss restoring files from backup in another article. System Restore can do a lot more than just a simple registry backup and restore.

If System Restore were to damage your windows files, and cause it to act erratically, or prevented windows from booting, you will need to use Startup Repair, which I will discuss in a different article.