Technology Tips – Published November 2016 in the Guide and Digest
By Don Trauger – Kennett
You have a built-in safety net in Windows 10 called System Restore. Actually, it’s been in previous versions of Windows and I’ve written about this feature previously. However, for some unexplained reason a bug in the Windows 10 August update may have turned off this important feature.
The purpose of System Restore is to get your computer working again after a serious malfunction. System Restore can be used when you feel that you can’t troubleshoot a computer problem. To correct a serious problem all you need to do is select a date when the computer was working correctly and let it do the rest. Read my February 2016 article about Repair & Recovery for an overview on System Restore and System Reset. It’s available online at www.hersheysmill.org. In the Search field type “Windows 10 repair recovery” (no quotes).
Assuming you can boot your computer to the Desktop screen, type “create a restore point” (no quotes) in the “Ask me anything” field next to the 4 pane white Start button. At the top of the pop-up window, click on “create a restore point”. In the System Properties window, under Protection Settings, Protection must be “on”. If not, click the Configure button and select “Turn on system protection”. Just below, under Disk Space Usage, set the slider for about 10Gb, then click OK.
Windows will create automatic Restore points prior to when it installs updates. However, you can always create one too. I recommend it whenever you plan to make major changes to your PC or even if it’s working fine and you want a timely “safety net”. To create your own Restore point, click the Create button, give it a name in the pop-up window and click the Create button in the same window.
Suppose you have a situation where the computer is not booting correctly. This requires a different approach. You may see Startup Repair try to fix the problem. It will attempt this 3 times before stopping and showing the Choose an Option screen if it has been unsuccessful in making the repair. If the computer continually fails to boot, click Troubleshoot, then click Advanced Options, and click System Restore.
You can also enter Windows troubleshooting mode manually if the computer can boot to the Desktop screen. Click the Start button (the 4 pane white icon) click the power icon which is just above the Start button and then hold down the Shift button on the keyboard while you click Restart.
We’ll show you how this will work for you at the PC Club. We meet on the 3rd Tuesday at 7 PM of each month at the Community Center.