System restore feature was introduced in windows xp. The popularity of windows xp system restore feature has ensured that the feature is avialable in the latest OS offering from microsoft i.e windows 7 that too in a much improvesied form.

Understanding System Restore

If you have not encountered system restore in earlier versions of windows then think of it as a undo command for microsoft windows. If your os starts behavings badly after installing a particular programme or because of a virus etc, then you can use system restore to take your computer back to an earlier date when it was working fine.

How does System Restore in Windows 7 work

If you enable system restore then it takes periodical snapshot of your system and stores them as restore points when you make any significant changes or install any driver. When you use system restore to solve a problem it simply overwrites your current file system by this backed up configuration. Since the backed up version did not have the problematic software or virus, the problem gets resolved.

Scan for Affected Programs before doing system restore in Windows 7

A big problem with system restore in windows xp was that there was no way to find out what all programmes will be deleted after the system restore. The problem has been resolved to a large extent in windows 7 through a feature called scan for affected programmes. It will provide you a list of prgrams that will be uninstalled after the system restore, thereby making it easier to decide if you need to back up certain files.

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