Author Topic: Need help with System Restore that has been disabled. (Read 11446 times)

scot65 · « **on:** August 06, 2012, 07:45:54 am »

See attachment.
Auslogics defrag show that system restore definitions are being regularly created.
However I cannot access system restore.
I inherited this workstation with this issue some 5 years ago.
We have since employed 2 IT's, had a server change, and new user group.
For now I use ERUNT, but my 40g hard drive is slowly filling up and I cannot
account for about 24g. I think it is the system restore definitions.
I'm pretty sure the size on hard drive for system restore is maxed out (factory setting).
I have tried the windows cleanup tool to free up hard drive by removing older
system restore definitions, but there is no lengthy pause after selecting the OK button,
which makes me think this is also disabled.

What part of your software do I use in order to make this system restore work again?

Shane · « **Reply #1 on:** August 06, 2012, 11:56:00 am »

The system restore is disabled by a group policy. You need to remove that policy, which is in the registry.

Is the user account have admin rights? And is it logging into a domain?

Shane

scot65 · « **Reply #2 on:** August 06, 2012, 12:59:10 pm »

Quote from: Shane on August 06, 2012, 11:56:00 am

The system restore is disabled by a group policy. You need to remove that policy, which is in the registry.

Is the user account have admin rights? And is it logging into a domain?

Shane

Yes, I have admin rights.
Yes, this station is on a domain.

No, this "policy" is no longer observed for each new station in this office - I have the only one.
We ordered 4 matching computers to which this one is the lone survivor. I know the other 2 did
not have this policy in place and wonder if a virus did this, to this computer(?) prior to my use.
The fourth one had the hard drive wiped with a new XP OS and has since died (again).

Yes, I have full access to the registry.

Yes, everyone except this station and another is on w7.

Can you help?

Shane · « **Reply #3 on:** August 06, 2012, 01:02:39 pm »

You should be able to remove the policy like this

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/srpolicy.htm

Once removed you will need to reboot. Let me know how it goes

Shane

scot65 · « **Reply #4 on:** August 07, 2012, 07:52:06 am »

Thanks Shane.
The dialog gpedit.msc did show the two as "Not Configured".
The registry showed only one key, value 0, to which I removed.
System restore now works.
Now if I can figure out why there is 24G of unaccounted file space on the hard drive...
Thanks again Shane!

Shane · « **Reply #5 on:** August 07, 2012, 11:56:11 am »

One of my biggest customers (I run a computer repair business) has a domain setup from their old tech.

He had a domain set up. I only setup domains when it is called for. And on this domain he had offline files enabled.

It was using up 45gb on one machine.

You need to right click on a folder and go to properties.

There you should have an offline files tab. There you can turn it off and delete the offline files.

At least that is what it sounds like with the 24gb of unexplained used space on the system

Shane