SLOAN RANGER
Windows is a bossy operating system
WANDA SLOAN
Windows XP lets you decide whether to have system restore on your hard drives, and how much disk space to allocate. Vista allows fewer choices. |
It seems ludicrous now, but the big sales push for Microsoft Windows when it began to edge into the PC market was that it would make computers easy to operate - as easy as a toaster, say? How could you go wrong if all you had to do was click on a cute little cartoon every time you wanted to do something?
Well, anyway, that explains why Windows is kind of a bossy operating system. The trade-off was supposed to be: We the humans will give Windows and the computer control of almost everything, and Windows will help us, protect us and tuck us gently into our soft beds each evening.
Instead, of course, what we got was "You do not have enough disk space to complete that operation." And the reason for that is because Windows is hogging a lot of it.
A couple or six weeks ago, we looked at how you can stop the Recycle Bin from taking up too much disk space. Quick recapitulation: Right click the bin icon, choose properties, and allocate a maximum percentage of the disk - if any - you want to store files you have already chosen to delete.
System Restore, a very nice feature of the far-from-simple Windows operating system, also can be as arrogant as a whiney teenager in its demands for space.
System Restore is a feature that truly can save you from computer disaster. It is basically a time machine, which can move the entire Windows operation back a few hours or a few weeks to a more perfect time, before you installed that funny-looking game that turned out to be a virus.
The double beauty of System Restore is that it does not affect your data. You know how those annoying old people are always saying to you, "I wish I knew what I know now when I was your age"? Well, that is System Restore: It takes the computer's body back to an earlier, more healthy state while maintaining all the information you've put into it.
On every Windows version, Microsoft has put System Restore in a different place. There are several different entrances, and if you have a favourite, ignore the following three paragraphs: To get at it to either create a Restore Point just in case, or to revert to a previous restore point, do this.
In Windows XP, click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore.
In Vista, the easy way to open the wizard is to click on Start, then type "System" with the quote marks. Open System, then click the Advanced System Properties tab.
However, you may still get a folder instead of what you want. Alternatively in Vista, therefore, open the Control Panel. Click on System and Maintenance, then System, then System Properties, then the System Protection tab. Yes, Vista is supposed to be even easier than Win XP, isn't that hilarious?
Okay, is everyone back?
Windows XP allows you several tweaking operations with System Control. The most important for this discussion is that you can allocate a maximum amount of disk space, by percentage - and you can choose to turn off System Restore.
There really is very little advantage to having 10 old restore points instead of two, and I see no reason to give System Restore more than, say, 1.5 gigabytes of your disk at the outside. Each restore point, Microsoft tells us, needs 300MB of disk space at a minimum.
If you turn off System Restore, all previous restore points are deleted. So long as you sure the computer is running well this morning, turn them all off for a second just to clean up.
Then, turn System Restore back on, but only on the drives where you have a system. For almost all of us, that means, you only want System Restore working for the C: drive. It won't help anywhere else. The purpose of all this is to get back our disk space from the self-important Windows, remember?
In Vista, System Restore is actually a little simpler and thus easier, but the principles remain the same. Remember that in Vista, to do almost anything with the system, you must be logged on with full administrator rights. Windows Vista automagically makes a new restore point every day, so you should probably make sure you have at least enough disk space for two, just in case today turns out to be a really bad day.
Once you open System Restore, you will see your choices, which are few but important. As in XP, you can delete all restore points by turning off System Restore, and then make a new, current one by turning it back on again. Click the System Restore tab to get to the wizard, or simply click on Create to, well, create a current restore point.
While all of this parallels the old XP format, the Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Vista go far beyond System Restore with a spiffy new feature called Complete PC Backup and Restore. This is by far the best backup-restore utility that Microsoft ever has produced.
Many people won't use it because they already use a disk duplicator such as the popular Norton Ghost. But you should know it is available because it is efficient and it is reasonably smart, such as being able to tell you how many DVDs you need. But really, backing up everything on your computer to a bunch of DVDs seems futile, and the Vista Backup and Restore is really only good if you have a big, second, preferably external hard drive to hold the whole thing.
To use this backup, click the Start Orb, then burrow through All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and Backup Status and Configuration. It's an excellent wizard and you shouldn't need much help. While it works, you'll have time to fix yourself for ladies' night, be a proper half hour late, and come home a little after your usual curfew, too.
Email: wandas@post.com.
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