Alternative to Win 10 System Restore

[gray eagle]

Looking for viable alternative to Win 10 system restore. I've tried to disable Defender and when the computer reboots
and all the desktop icons populate I get this message:


I've heard of some programs that take snapshots of HD and contents and then offer to restore to previous state.

Curious as to other programs that would equal or better then native Win Sys restore.
Thanks

[wombat666]

Win 7-64?


Strictly off the top of my head I think something like Acronis True Image (or similar) might be worth a look.
I've stopped worrying about 'System Restore', I've a system recovery backup on a flash drive.

[java2srv]

There are possibly "known problems" with System Restore on some recent Win 10 releases, I've had the same happen on a newer Win 10 laptop of mine. If you click the Start and type "Winver" (winver.exe) and then Enter you'll get a dialog box that shows your Windows 10 version.

Wombat666 is probably suggesting a more reliable way to protect your system. My opinion is that I don't think Microsoft is going to get their situation with Windows 10 sorted out any time soon. An external drive or two are a bargain for keeping things simple.

If you haven't checked out "tenforums.com", "eightforums.com" and "sevenforums.com" yet you'll find a clever and sympathetic group of people who share many similar problems with Windows.

The system of mine that won't complete a restore is a Win 10 1709 version. A few Windows forums suggested that permissions on the "bootstat.dat" file under \Windows folder are incorrect and System Restore can't access the file (see your screen capture). The fix was to boot from a DVD or USB drive -- this system dual-boots Linux Mint 19 so I used that -- and rename the stuck "bootstat.dat". This worked OK for me and the restore completed to the restore point, but I don't know yet if I have to do that every time I do a restore. That's non-critical on that system so I can continue to try things without having to actually depend on a restore.

I'm like you, I used System Restore all the time on Win XP and Win 7. Now it may be a "known problem" on some Win 10 versions according to some of the community discussion. Update to Win 10 1803 or 1809 break a custom application I use on that system, so if updates fixed the problem I'm kind of out of luck.

I'm starting to think my "next" Windows 10 system will be stripped down to just the Microsoft "Hyper-V" virtual machine and then I'll run a nice stable Windows 7 on top that doesn't obliterate itself with automatic and quasi-uncontrollable updates.

[gray eagle]

There are possibly "known problems" with System Restore on some recent Win 10 releases, I've had the same happen on a newer Win 10 laptop of mine. If you click the Start and type "Winver" (winver.exe) and then Enter you'll get a dialog box that shows your Windows 10 version.

Wombat666 is probably suggesting a more reliable way to protect your system. My opinion is that I don't think Microsoft is going to get their situation with Windows 10 sorted out any time soon. An external drive or two are a bargain for keeping things simple.

If you haven't checked out "tenforums.com", "eightforums.com" and "sevenforums.com" yet you'll find a clever and sympathetic group of people who share many similar problems with Windows.

The system of mine that won't complete a restore is a Win 10 1709 version. A few Windows forums suggested that permissions on the "bootstat.dat" file under \Windows folder are incorrect and System Restore can't access the file (see your screen capture). The fix was to boot from a DVD or USB drive -- this system dual-boots Linux Mint 19 so I used that -- and rename the stuck "bootstat.dat". This worked OK for me and the restore completed to the restore point, but I don't know yet if I have to do that every time I do a restore. That's non-critical on that system so I can continue to try things without having to actually depend on a restore.

I'm like you, I used System Restore all the time on Win XP and Win 7. Now it may be a "known problem" on some Win 10 versions according to some of the community discussion. Update to Win 10 1803 or 1809 break a custom application I use on that system, so if updates fixed the problem I'm kind of out of luck.

I'm starting to think my "next" Windows 10 system will be stripped down to just the Microsoft "Hyper-V" virtual machine and then I'll run a nice stable Windows 7 on top that doesn't obliterate itself with automatic and quasi-uncontrollable updates.

I'm using V 1809 - I can create a restore point but not revert to it. I've looked at some copy cat versions of system restore (snapshot programs) and discovered a couple:
1. restoreRX (free) it allows seven snaps shots - the Pro (pay) version unlimited) you can lock/unlock each snap.
This one will auto boot and you have option to continue the boot or revert to a saved snap or exit and continue with bootup.
https://horizondatasys.com/reboot-restore-rx-freeware/

2. There is another one called RestoreIT

http://farstone.com/restoreit/

Their support (email) is not so good. It will also take a snap after you install/uinstall a program which is a nice feature.

I read one disgruntled customer of restorRX that he didn't like programs that meddle with you MBR.

Then I hear that the best way is to skip system restore and do a image or system backup - which takes some time to do where as a snap would take
only a few minutes depending on how much data is on your HD.

Thanks for your input.