Tips & Tricks

Win XP Time Travel

Have you ever made a change to your computer that messed everything up? A great feature of Windows XP is System Restore. You can go back to a previous setup without losing your documents, jpegs, emails, or other files. It keeps track of changes in your system and automatically creates what are called "restore points". These points allow you to travel back in time to when your system was more stable.

To bring up System Restore, go to Start/Programs/Accesories/System Tools then click "System Restore". You must be logged in as Administrator and make sure that you close all programs and save all files. Select the radio button that says "Restore my computer to an earlier time" then click "Next". The days in bold type are days that have restore points.

Select a day and click "Next". Windows will shut down then restart with the settings from the date chosen. Pretty slick, huh.

Even though System restore automatically creates restore points, it is a good idea to manually create one when you are making any changes (like installing Service Pack 2). To do this, choose the radio button marked "Create a Restore Point" on the first screen then click "Next". Give the R.P. a name then click "Create". The new point will be stamped with the hcurrent date and time.

If you run into any problems, there's a safety net thanks to this little feature. I don't know how many times it saved my behind.

~ David

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