Windows 10: Windows randomly deletes restore points

Windows randomly deletes restore points, even ones I have manually created. Is it possible to create a manual restore point that windows cannot possibly delete?

:)

 

automatic restore points

Restore points are either created by Windows Update or by you the user. I am not aware of Windows 10 just randomly creating automatic Restore points.

Examples of scenarios where you create system restore points include before a major update, installing new hardware or software or new releases of Windows.

 

Deleting restore point

Sir,
I received Lumia 510 from my father a month back, the first live account was his one. When he gave me the phone I tried to delete the account but there was no option to delete that account the only option available was of 'synchronize'. Then on 6th
Feb 2013 I updated the phone's software to 7.8 . Yesterday, I hit the reset my phone option which erased my father's live account and then I added mine but during the this process, the phone software again rolled back to 7.5. Now I want to update my software
version to 7.8 but when I update my phone from zune it again brings back my fathers account and his contacts etc. Please help to remove the restore point and perform the update safely.

 

Are you dual booting? That's a common reason. Have you allocated enough disk space?

Please search the forum for
restore points disappearing
restore points lost
etc

and you will find many results which may help you. Please have a look then come back if your question is not resolved saying what you have considered.

 

I'm not dual booting and I have about 137GB left. I will try and see if any of the threads has a solution. I didn't know the problem was so widespread.

Edit, so I just checked the amount of disk space usage for system protection. It's set to 4% (10GB). Is that enough?

 

Upgrading to a new version of Windows (like Anniversary to Creators for example) turns of system protection and deletes all restore points. A bit annoying but there is nothing to be done about that unless Microsoft stops doing it which (most likely) they will not.

Assuming you haven't upgraded and you are losing old restore points then this is normal once the space allocated is reached - it will drop old ones. Whether 10GB is enough depends on how much you install/remove software or otherwise change data in the protected files.

For me that would be enough for probably 5 or 10 (the first one being by far the biggest generally).

If you want to make a restore point that will never be deleted then you can't. It isn't really the intended use I don't think - more to revert to a last know good state before you did something by mistake or tested installing some software.

If you want a permanent snapshot it would be better to make a system image. You can use the soon to be dropped built in one in Control Panel > File History > System Image Backup or use some other program like Macrium.

 

As you note, there's a disk limit. The most recent restore points are retained and older ones deleted, as @lx07 says. If that's not what you're seeing, then research may help you.

Note that if enough restore points aren't being created or not frequently enough you can schedule restore point creation (a tutorial refers). I have this set up... some had difficulty with this and Brink modified a script to help as I recall. (I still use an old one).




Note: don't only rely on system restore. It can fail to restore when you want it to- nor is it a complete solution as only certain things are protected.

 

Why is microsoft deleting my system restore points without my permision?

I have changed it to 10% (23GB) to see if it works. But I think it would be best if windows only saved the manual restore points that I create myself, is there any way to do this?

I just tried to create a system image but it says the drive is not a valid destination.

 

If you tried to create the image on C:, that's why the error message. Windows won't allow you to backup an image of itself onto itself (Same drive/partition). Wouldn't make any sense even if they did. You couldn't recover from an image you can't get to. Direct the output to an external drive, or another Internal drive other than the one you boot from.

As stated above, Macrium is probably a better solution for you than native Windows Backup. MS is discontinuing their backup (SIB) in the next release (less than 2 weeks).

 

Sorry to hijack this post but I have been unable to find anything about MS ditching system image backup, is this definitely happening in the next 10 release?? Are they not introducing any new backup tools??

 

No they aren't removing it yet.

It is "deprecated" in the fall release which means "not in active development and might be removed in future releases" (unless they change their mind presumably).

See features that are removed or deprecated in windows 10 fall creators update

 

This is kinda the key phrase there. Get used to something else, Like Macrium....


System Image Backup (SIB) Solution
We recommend that users use full-disk backup solutions from other vendors.

 

I tried creating it on one of my usb flash drives, but windows refuses to make the image on a usb flash drive. Is there a way to stop windows from creating system restore points automatically? I would prefer the ones i create manually.

 

I tried searching for a way to disable windows from automatically creating system restore points but i couldnt find anything besides some guides made for windows 7/8 plus an answer from microsoft that tells me to disable system protection and then create a manual restore point afterwards which doesnt make any sense since you cant do that when system protection is disabled.

I want to create my own restore points manually so it wont take up all the space and so the old ones wont get deleted.

 

I think we've stated it can't be done. And there's good reason- Windows is a moving target.

You can create your own manually from the GUI; the Tutorial also advises how to do this on a schedule you set up.

Never depend solely on System Restore. Consider- disk failure will render system restore useless.

If you want to back up the registry - part of what System Restore protects- you can. Various programs support that for your convenience. But that's not such a great way to secure your system.