Most times your computer stops working properly one of three issues is to blame: often a change you have made – installing software or changing a critical setting – has caused something to go awry. If not it may be that you have a malware infection, or something mechanical may have gone wrong (your storage is full, you don’t have enough RAM or something has overheated and broken). System Restore is a limited but brilliant tool – it won’t delete a virus or mend a broken fan. But if the problem is a recent change made by your or software you installed, it can be your saviour – System Restore will rewind your PC or laptop to a time before things went wrong.
System Restore creates ‘restore points’ all the time. Every day, every time Windows updates itself, whenever you install new software, or whenever you manually choose to make one. (Thus it’s a good idea to create a Restore Point if you are about to do something risky to your PC. We’ll explain how later.)
Restore points capture the settings of your system at a point you know it was working well. If something goes wrong you can slip back to that point, and everything should be okay. System Restore doesn’t change your personal files, but it might remove recently installed applications and drivers.
System Restore must be enabled on every drive on which you use it, and you need around 300MB of disk space. It’s enabled by default, however, so here’s how to use System Restore in Windows 8.
Use System Restore to fix your Windows 8 PC: restore a laptop to a previous date
Before you start save every document you need to keep. And bear in mind that you won’t be able to use your PC or latop during this process, which takes a few minutes.
If you are using a touchscreen Windows 8 device swipe in from the right edge of the screen, then tap Search. If you’re using a mouse, point to the top-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, then click Search. Or simply hold down the Windows key and Q. In the search box type ‘Recovery’. Then tap or click the ‘Settings’ bar on the righthand side, and choose the ‘Recovery’ icon.
From the resulting windows select Open System Restore.
By default you’ll be shown the most recent Restore Point. In our case this was created when installed BlackBerry’s Link software. To restore to this point, click Next and then Finish. Your PC will now roll back. This will take a few minutes, and involve restarting your system.
Alternatively, select ‘Choose a different restore point’ and hit Next. If you enable the ‘Show more restore points’ checkbox you will see all available Restore points. These will represent all recent major changes, and any restore points you set up yourself. Select one of these, click Next and Finish. Your PC will now roll back.
Use System Restore to create restore points
Use the methods outlined above to call up the Windows 8 Search bar. Type in ‘Restore’ and select ‘Settings’. Choose ‘Create a restore point’.
Select ‘Create’ to manually make a new System Restore restore point. You’ll be asked to name your restore point for future reference. Write in a suitable name and hit ‘Create’.
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Matt Egan is Global Editorial Director of IDG, publisher of Tech Advisor, and a passionate technology fan who writes on subjects as diverse as smartphones, internet security, social media and Windows.
