System Restore

[rednek tek]

Seeing as how I am fixing to do a format and reload because I have had ongoing problems I can't get resolved, and 98SE only saves the 5 newest versions of the registry, it got me to thinking. Yeah, I know wise guy, imagine that. Anyway, would it be possible to install the system restore feature of ME onto 98SE. This is the ONLY thing about Windows ME I can truly give a thumbs up to and would like to do this if there is a way. Man, I hate this--several hours of download time on dialup to download Windows and IE updates, patches, and security fixes. All this because of the w32.magistr trojan, of unknown origins, which Norton made a valiant effort to eliminate, but something in the registry got hosed. As a result, I am getting frequent Fatal Exception, Illegal OP, BSD's, system freezes, and other assorted errors. ZA, IE, and NAV don't work right, even though they have been reinstalled. This particular bug targets ZA and NAV. But most telling, is the fact I am getting more frequent stack overflow errors and system resources are out of whack--this alone tells me something is running in the background and trying to phone home that shouldn't be, despite the fact that none of the snooping around and diagnostics I have run shows nothing.

[Cowboy622]

Yes. It is explained here, plus the consequences. Which are this. only five will be displayed at a time if you do a restore. And those will be the earliest. Not the most recent. Here is a Microsoft Article on the subject

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q182841

[DVOM]

Have you thought about GoBack?

[JonathanB]

I also hate that 5 restores of the reg. The choice is just too few. I instead uses Registry Saver Pro. I have corrected my reg one time from more than a week of backup. And it's back to normal. Though I have to clean the entries with Norton Systemworks after the restore.

[Kento]

"would it be possible to install the system restore feature of ME onto 98SE."

No. But as suggested you could use a program called GoBack. It does what system restore does.

Your problems might be coincidental to the virus and may actually be caused by bad ram. Run a few ram tests with Doc Memory (free) and see what it reports. They might be virus related but run the ram test anyhow.

http://www.dimmtester.com/PAGE/products/demos.asp

[rednek tek]

Sometimes I am tempted to throw this thing out the window. I am really starting to suspect a hardware problem, possibly a CPU that is slowly dying. I have since formatted and reloaded Windows. I only have Norton System Works 1.1, Partition Magic 6.0, video card and modem drivers, and Asus Probe, and Asus Update installed. I am still getting system crashes, illegal op errors, and freezes. I resolved one error quite by accident today. I had disabled virtual memory during the first disk defrag after I had gotten rid of all the garbage and errors using WinDoctor. Everytime Asus Probe loaded I would get a bsd and Asus Probe would shutdown, even though I had uninstalled it and reinstalled it a couple times and it worked just fine before the format. While poking around today, I discovered I had forgotten to re-enable virtual memory. Re-enabled it and no more Asus Probe bsd errors--it now works fine. Available system resources are now about where they should be for what I have open, currently at 73%, confirming my suspicions that said trojan was still active enough to get itself allocated system resources, even though no traces of it were found as I was going through my system. I guess it's called a trojan for a reason. Occasionally, after a hang, the bios setting for FSB speed is reset to 100 MHZ, when it should be 133MHZ. This more than anything, makes me think there is a problem with the CPU or the BIOS needs updated. Where can I get a good free program or web based troubleshooter to test my CPU? I don't want to flash the BIOS with an update unless it is deemed a necessary risk--I don't want to have to buy another motherboard because of a trashed BIOS chip. There is nothing overheating that I know of. Current temps: CPU-51 degrees C/123 degrees F Motherboard-40 degrees C/104 degrees F . Nice and cool. I have thought maybe my video card is overheating, since it has no fan, and I occasionally get the smell of something electronic getting a tad warm. I'm not a gamer who gives my video card a real workout, but could this be causing a problem?? I am somewhat familiar with GoBack and know that it works, but I don't have it. I have run DocMemory. No problems found. I will check out Registry Saver Pro. I have been trying to download the Microsoft updates and patches, but I can't even finish that without getting a BSD or a crash. I have since run WinDoctor--no problems found. Since I have very little stuff reloaded, and it is doing somewhat better after the format, I strongly suspect a pending hardware failure. I need help here guys, this is really starting to p**s me off. I don't want to add fuel to the fire by reloading much stuff until this problem is resolved. Nice and slow and easy--one step at a time. When finished, I can then run Norton Ghost, so that I will have something solid to fall back on in the future, when I need it.