System Restore slowing down

Maybe disconnect and then Ctrl+Alt+Delete and stop everything except Explorer and Systray.

GeraldXX

With Av running system is not idling..Nix caught it!

From XP site but same for WinMe

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Symptom
By default, System Restore creates automatic Restore Points (called as "System Checkpoints") every 24 Hrs. Many users complain that "System Checkpoints" are not created or created apparently random. There are two reasons for this:

Case 1
The Automatic System Restore point depends upon Task Scheduler service, though Scheduled Tasks will not show System Restore as a job. System Restore Checkpoints may not be created if Task Scheduler service is Stopped.

Case 2
System Restore requires the machine to be in an idle state to create system check points. This is by design so that System Restore never intrudes when the user is using the machine by taking processing power to create a system checkpoint. Hence, if system restore never sees any idle time on the machine, it will not be able to create System Checkpoints. This usually occurs if an virus scan is running and the anti-virus software is running
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Teddy Bear..hope we didn't hijack your post... :cool:
Hi train...longtime no see :)

Just arrived in the forums here - so forgive the late start!!
GeraldXX - would you care to restate your problems with SR in one fell swoop?

I'll try and summarize what I've seen......

1) your System Restore only occasionally creates automatic restore points..... and that's about it!

What could behappening is that the system isn't left alone for long enough for SR to start work - it MUST have 2 minutes 'slack time' with CPU usage less than about 5%.
Frequently, small things can stop this - in the case of BB connections, one of the most common is the firewall you're using! This is because it will tend to write to the HD every so often, and start SR's clock again See if there's an option to increase the time between saves of the log, or to turn off logging altogether. (one or two Firewalls are notorious for affecting ME's SR in this and other ways - ZA for one, is particularly bad in some versions)

what's running in the background? - what is your screensaver? - an active screensaver (e.g. the 3D pipes) is enought to interfere.

Smitee
in neither Win ME, nor in Win XP does System Restore depend in any way upon the Task Scheduler - it runs totally independently (I know - I routinely disable the TS in both OS's on my PC's)

Thank you Noel for reviving my thinking on this! I have not gone to sleep but have been up to my ears with things recently.

However, you have hit the nail on the head - it is something working in the background. This morning, I closed everything except explorer and systray and, within a very few minutes I had a system checkpoint arrive. I now have to work back turning off one thing at a time until I discover which it is. I shall let you know what turns up. This will require patience on my part as, so far as I understand, a checkpoint only occurs every 10 hours that the computer is on.

So after my SR starting producing check points again, I decided to carry out a system restore. Even though the check points were there, system restore would not restore. I tried about 15 check points and none of them worked. So I disabled SR and then enabled it once again. It is happy making restore points but I haven't tried to perform a SR. I've added a few programs to my pc and will wait until next week before I restore, because I want to keep what I just installed and not have to do it again. :p

We can always do the old faithful:

Insert EBD
Restart pc
Choose #2 (without cd rom support)
Call up C:
Type: attrib -r -s -h _RESTORE
Enter
Type: ren _RESTORE oldrest
Enter
Remove EBD
Reboot

It was a sure fix for me last time. I was able to restore without any probs. Of course you'll lose all previous restore points, but if they're not working, you're not really losing anything. These steps literally restarts SR again.

Teddy :D

That was very interisting. I did what you suggested, TeddyBear, and, on the final re-boot a system check wass created. I shall now wait with interest to see if it does any more!

Don't forget to delete the c:\OLDREST folder after the reboot!!
:)

This is not really a 'fix' for anything except corruption of the control files - which usually exhibits as an overflowing archive (64K files in the /TEMP folder), or a SYstem Restore which refuses to do anything at all.

Your problem - as you've already demonstrated, is simply that you have a background process running which is preventing SR from cabbing the files at the usual time.

If you would like an opinion - post a list of the items in the MSCONFIG |Startup list, and I'll see if I can spot the beastie.

I would appreciate this - but cannot determine how to post the list from MSCONFIG. There must be a way as I have seen that others have done it in other threads.

Incidentally, another Sysyem Checkpoint has arrived this morning!

Start|Run - type "MSINFO32" & click OK (without the quotes!)
Navigate to Software Environment|Startup Programs
Hit CTRL+A, anc copy/paste into notepad or your response

I don't know how you know all these things, but it has worked. Here is my list of startup programmes

%FP%Friendly fts.exe "c:\program files\voyagertest\fts.exe" All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
*StateMgr c:\windows\system\restore\statemgr.exe All Users HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
AOLDialer c:\program files\common files\aol\acs\aoldial.exe All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
AVG7_AMSVR c:\progra~1\grisoft\avgfre~1\avgamsvr.exe All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
AVG7_CC c:\progra~1\grisoft\avgfre~1\avgcc.exe /startup All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
BTModemProtection btmodemprotection.lnk All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
DSLAGENTEXE c:\program files\bt voyager 105 adsl modem\dslagent.exe All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
DSLSTATEXE c:\program files\bt voyager 105 adsl modem\dslstat.exe icon All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
MPFExe c:\progra~1\mcafee.com\person~1\mpftray.exe All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
PenLock All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
ScanRegistry c:\windows\scanregw.exe /autorun All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
SchedulingAgent mstask.exe All Users HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices
SystemTray systray.exe All Users HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

My betting is McAfee's Firewall being the problem one - I run AVG and AOL myself and have no problems with SR points (but I am more likely to be in XP than ME)
I'm not familiar with Penlock - and can't see much on it in Google
(Quite surprised that there's only one entry for AOL there, BTW!)

SO - we're left with
DSLAGENT.EXE
DSLSTAT.EXE
BTModemProtection.lnk
mpftray.exe

Check the options in the Firewall - make sure that you either have logging switched off, or set to write to disk no more frequently than 3minutes.
(Which version of McAfee is it? - where from?). Unfortunately, I can't find any instructions on the McAfee website which tell me how to do this - they may by in your manualor Help files.

Check the options on the Voyager - AFAIK, it writes nothing back to the PC, beyond the normal uPnP stuff, so shouldn't cause a problem - it doesn't in XP, anyhow

My McAfee is the "persopnal fireware". This was the freebbee programme they make available.

The event logging was turned on, I have changed that to "do not log events" and we shall see what happens!

Many thanks, I'll let you know.

I'm not oging anywhere......
:)

Hey Noel,

I just realised that I asked you many years ago I think on the MS Picture It Newsgroups if you lived in Balgowlah NSW Australia, as I know someone by that name and was curious if it was you.

You said no, but it's funny that all these years later our paths would cross again.