Every time i have used system restore, it has messed up and either caused me to have to reformatt or like yesterday, repair my windows install. I thought this thing was supposed to get you out of trouble, not make it worse...

not sure what you mean, messed up how? remember viruses and etc., stay in the system restore so if you scan your PC and clean it, then try to restore you will restore the virus also. but not sure what you mean if you could give us a bit more info we can perhaps shed some light

I'll link you to my rant in hardware comp issues

So, ya, system restore never works, i just has some error of fails or something. And i doubt its a virus since its happened a few times and always ended up making the problem worse.

OK well I do apologize but I really don't have time to read that whole thread.

here is the things, disable your system restore and then enable it again, doing so will erase all your old points. now set a fresh one.

if everything works well then next time you need to restore afterwards when you are sure your restore is good and you don't need to go back, repeat the enable disable otherwise all the old data is in your hdd taking space.

having said all that, I find system restore to be just fine, but its not the best way.

If you are really worried about your setup then clone your hdd with acronis true image's rescue media the rest is BS