Manage your restore points | Bangkok Post: tech

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One of the most useful utilities you have on your Windows computer is System Restore. It's part of the proof that not every utility made by Microsoft is terrible.

System Restore is the instant playback of computers, the time-travel machine.

System Restore actually lets you go backwards in your life to a better time, a gentler day, a point in time where there was not a virus attacking your computer, when there was not a hacker's program using your resources to spread his email. And so on.

System Restore Manager lists all your current restore points, and helps you add new ones or delete those you no longer need.

If you have a serious software issue on your computer, the solution that almost always works is to roll back your entire system to a point before you had the problem. You keep your data; you may lose a program or two that you recently installed, and you probably will re-commence trouble-free computing.

Microsoft's System Restore is troublesome to get at, bare-bones to operate and not very intuitive.

Small, portable, System Restore Manager by the nice folks at The Windows Club is way faster, far simpler and much more intuitive.

Start it from anywhere. Create a new Restore Point at a click. Wipe out old and useless restore points and regain disk space at another click.

System Restore Manager also will create restore points for you automatically at any interval you want, and let you know the amount of disk space the points are taking up.

Take a look at the screenshot. The program will make a new restore point every hour, although you don't need anything like that.

System Restore Manager is well explained and illustrated. Go to (http://www.theWindowsClub.com) and click on Downloads to find it.