'create Restore Point' question

[bit]

In Windows 7 Pro, b/c my machine is older, and I occasionally get a BSOD.
So long as I have at least one Restore Point created, my pc reboots and recovers just fine.
But each time it does this, it uses up and cancels out the RP.
So my SOP is to let it reboot to Desktop, then run a registry scan, then create a new RP for the next BSOD.
Better yet, to have several RPs.
It looks to me as if, every 1st of the month, the OS dumps all old RPs.
So it keeps me on my toes making sure I have at least one valid RP.
Is there a way to set up the OS to automatically create a new RP every so often, once a day or whatever?
Or what other advice does anyone have (besides getting a newer machine)?

[TaoPhoenix]

In Windows 7 Pro, b/c my machine is older, and I occasionally get a BSOD.
So long as I have at least one Restore Point created, my pc reboots and recovers just fine.
But each time it does this, it uses up and cancels out the RP.
So my SOP is to let it reboot to Desktop, then run a registry scan, then create a new RP for the next BSOD.
Better yet, to have several RPs.
It looks to me as if, every 1st of the month, the OS dumps all old RPs.
So it keeps me on my toes making sure I have at least one valid RP.
Is there a way to set up the OS to automatically create a new RP every so often, once a day or whatever?
Or what other advice does anyone have (besides getting a newer machine)?

There's gotta be a way because I've seen on various software that it is "creating a restore point".

[Shades]

Read this thread (2nd post) on the Microsoft Community forums. It states that when you enable the Windows services associated with the creation of restore points, your PC should make one RP once a week or when Windows detects that a (big) change occurs on your computer. Automagically...

[Curt]

important information was missing on those linked, otherwise really useful, pages:

bit; your Windows is deleting restore points exactly as you were fearing. The good news is that time is not the determining factor, but space is. So it's not per week or so; if your drive has the space, you can easily make Windows keep more restore points. Remember that you can use an external drive for restore points (as well as for backups), so you don't have to get a new machine just yet.

Start > right-click "Computer" > Properties > System Protection > Configure... > Disk Space Usage

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[bit]

Thank you everyone, it was set to manual but I've reset it to automatic.
The person who originally set up my computer got me a RAID mobo, and there seems to be no way to make it see two SATA HDs as different HDs at the same time (i.e. Primary & Secondary), so I have to  use a slow old EIDE HD as Secondary, and normally reserve it for a disconnected HD clone of the Primary HD.
I have several other fast large SATA HDs, and it's too bad I can't seem to find a way to get the mobo to see more than one SATA HD separately at a time.

(edit): Come to think of it, maybe I could get a SATA to EIDE adapter and make my mobo see a Secondary SATA as EIDE.
There's quite a line-up of different ones on Amazon, Ebay, and elsewhere; is there any special model anyone cares to recommend in the $6 to $20 range?

[Ath]

What's the brand & model of that mobo?

[bit]

What's the brand & model of that mobo?

Hi, it's an Asus A8N-SLI Premium mobo, running Win 7 Pro 32-bit on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core 4400+.

[Shades]

Sounds like an old motherboard to me. I used to have A8N-Pro ones, but these boards use the Nvidia chip-set and I hate to break it to you, these don't last long. I am convinced that the reason why your system is behaving oddly when connecting multiple HD's using different technologies gives you problems is, plain and simple, the quirks of a dying Nvidia chip-set.

Of all the boards I run, none of them have Nvidia chip-sets anymore. My experiences at that time may not be relevant anymore for new boards that have Nvidia chip-sets, but I was so appalled by the problems I encountered, you won't see me buy any mobo with their chip-sets ever again. At least 5 years ago I phased out Nvidia. I still have 3 Asus A8V (10+ years old and based on VIA chip-set) in use 24/7 and those are still going strong.

I do like Nvidia video cards though.

[bit]

^Tnx, but the Asus A8N-SLI Premium mobo has always had this problem (that it can only see one SATA HD at a time no matter how many are pugged into it) b/c it is a RAID mobo.
The person who built it chose it w/o asking me first, and by the time it was shipped to me I was stuck with it.
It does have EIDE HD Primary & Secondary terminal sockets though, so the idea is to get a SATA to EIDE adapter as a work-around, and make my mobo see a Secondary SATA as a Primary or Secondary EIDE.
I do very much appreciate the head's-up on Asus.

[bit]

Sounds like an old motherboard to me. I used to have A8N-Pro ones, but these boards use the Nvidia chip-set and I hate to break it to you, these don't last long. I am convinced that the reason why your system is behaving oddly when connecting multiple HD's using different technologies gives you problems is, plain and simple, the quirks of a dying Nvidia chip-set.

Of all the boards I run, none of them have Nvidia chip-sets anymore. My experiences at that time may not be relevant anymore for new boards that have Nvidia chip-sets, but I was so appalled by the problems I encountered, you won't see me buy any mobo with their chip-sets ever again. At least 5 years ago I phased out Nvidia. I still have 3 Asus A8V (10+ years old and based on VIA chip-set) in use 24/7 and those are still going strong.

I do like Nvidia video cards though.

The BSODs seem to happen in waves, like; a week or two of almost none, then bunches of them.
At a wild guess, this may be in connection with browser and-or flash player updates.

Lately, they seem to happen mainly while watching on-line vids, like on youtube.
No youtube, few or no BSODs.
Had a BSOD 1/2 hour ago while watching youtube, but any browser vid source seems to do it, such as LiveLeak.

My vid card is an NVidia GeForce GTS 450.

My machine used to open or start things promptly enough, before I installed Malwarebytes.
After MWB, it slowed the opening or starting time of everything way down.
Not faulting MWB, which has stopped quite a few PUPs, just commenting.

[Shades]

[attach]

[bit]

Tnx, I think I kind of see what you mean.
In Process Explorer,
System>Interrupts value:
-when idling = about 0.35 to 0.70.
-running LiveLeak vid = about 1.50 to 3.00.
Win 7 Pro = scratch install.
Operational HD = 10,000rpm WesternDigital 'platter' type sata.

Crashes don't seem to happen so much playing vids from HD.
I may have to uninstall Malwarebytes to reduce load, and maybe reinstall it once a month for a full PUP system scan.
From experimentation, MWB cannot be put into any kind of 'sleep mode' for cpu-intensive tasks, but must either be completely uninstalled or allowed to do its thing and run in full protection mode.
Before MWB, a click on a folder takes an 'eye blink' to open; now with MWB a click on any folder can take a count of 2 to 15 seconds sometimes (seriously).

I've wondered if my 8 year old case could take a new mobo/cpu/ram upgrade combo and transfer everything else over (maybe even save the four 1GB ram sticks), and what a good econo mobo/cpu combo might be (AMD seems cheaper than Intel).

At this time, it appears that a mobo/cpu combo would be a higher priority than a HD upgrade from 'platter' to SSD.

An obvious temporary work-around is to 'pull the plug' on watching on-line vids of over 3-4 minutes.

[Shades]

Although SSD's work fine with SATA2 ports, SSD's really start to work for you when you connect these to SATA3 (a.k.a 6g) ports on your mother board. And if your PC is older than 4 or 5 years, it is highly likely your motherboard doesn't have these SATA3 ports. RAM isn't backwards compatible. Your current mobo likely uses DDR2 RAM, your new mobo would use DDR3 RAM or better. Besides, your current RAM 'sticks' would slow down new RAM 'sticks' so significantly that you negate most, if not all, speed gains a new mobo gives you.

Unless you have a very custom build case, your case can handle mobo's build according to ATX standards.

 

[f0dder]

I've wondered if my 8 year old case could take a new mobo/cpu/ram upgrade combo and transfer everything else over (maybe even save the four 1GB ram sticks), and what a good econo mobo/cpu combo might be (AMD seems cheaper than Intel).

With that age, you'll be looking at a full PSU+Mobo+CPU+Ram+GPU upgraded. You can probably salvage the GPU if you aren't doing anything intensive, but it's likely to die within too long if it's in that age range... but for the rest, it really is a full upgrade. New CPU socket, new RAM type.

A thing, though... do you have any nvidia firewall thingy installed? That was one extremely source of instability when I ran AMD hardware from around that time. I'd also suggest you to migrate your data and break up the raid, I had some pretty bad experiences with amd/nforce raid (and ATi before that) from back then - can't remember the details, but from googling back then, I wasn't the only one. And it resulted in pretty bad data loss.

Although SSD's work fine with SATA2 ports, SSD's really start to work for you when you connect these to SATA3 (a.k.a 6g)

SSDs are a big performance boost at any level, even at SATA1 (150MB/s) you'll have trouble finding HDDs today that can keep up that speed at then entire disk surface... and the random seek time is always going to be better. It's only the most recent SSDs that need more than SATA2 (300MB/s) too reach max sustainedperformance. The very top models these days need faster than SATA tho

[bit]

^Shades - I uninstalled Malwarebytes, and folders all open within 1/2 second now, and Process Explorer System Interrupts is down around 0.40 at idle.
I can reinstall MWB once a month for a full system scan.
Meanwhile, I'll just have to be careful where I surf or what I install.

^f0dder - My case is a 'no frills' aluminum LianLi which I like value very highly, so if or when I can ever do a full PSU+Mobo+CPU+Ram+GPU upgrade, I may try to save the case.

I Googled the NVidia firewall issue, and don't seem to see any sign of it on my Uninstall Programs list, so I don't think it's there.
If I get a chance, I'll pick up an SSD HD as an easy speed boost.

[f0dder]

^f0dder - My case is a 'no frills' aluminum LianLi which I like value very highly, so if or when I can ever do a full PSU+Mobo+CPU+Ram+GPU upgrade, I may try to save the case.

Ah doh, missed that it was the case you were worried about, silly me - that should keep working, ATX standard and all.

If I get a chance, I'll pick up an SSD HD as an easy speed boost.

It does tend to help a lot. After a certain level of cpu, ram and gpu upgrades, SSD is the biggest performance upgrade you'll get for a while. I don't personally care a lot about OS boot speed, but everything disk-related just gets more responsive with an SSD. Just remember to have solid backups - when the consume drives die, they still tend to brick entirely.

[Vurbal]

Also, if you're going to upgrade, at least seriously consider a new PSU. Even the best power supplies degrade and fail. IME a poor (or poorly functioning) PSU is the surest way to kill almost anything in your computer.

[bit]

^f0dder - My case is a 'no frills' aluminum LianLi which I like value very highly, so if or when I can ever do a full PSU+Mobo+CPU+Ram+GPU upgrade, I may try to save the case.

Ah doh, missed that it was the case you were worried about, silly me - that should keep working, ATX standard and all.

If I get a chance, I'll pick up an SSD HD as an easy speed boost.

It does tend to help a lot. After a certain level of cpu, ram and gpu upgrades, SSD is the biggest performance upgrade you'll get for a while. I don't personally care a lot about OS boot speed, but everything disk-related just gets more responsive with an SSD. Just remember to have solid backups - when the consume drives die, they still tend to brick entirely.

Yes, that is my highest priority; above all else, save the case.

[bit]

The Flash player crashes seem to come and go in waves, mostly when playing online vids.
Sometimes it merely crashes Flash player but not the browser, sometimes it locks up the entire browser.
Or sometimes it just suddenly goes into a BSOD.
Sometimes everything is fine, I get off the net, click on 'shut down', and it suddenly gives a BSOD in the middle of shut down.
I always reboot, and run 'Create restore point', to prevent failure of reboot from future BSODs.
Rarely, almost never, does it crash when playing a non-Browser vid that is already on the HD or DVD.
All my online activity goes through a tunneled & encrypted proxie.

[Curt]

Almost all of the free Adobe products were updated recently. Do you have auto-update enabled? If not, Adobe will be pesky, by having their products work badly, when they need to be updated.

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[bit]

^Adobe Air needed updating, after which no crashes so far this morning. (:

[app103]

I can reinstall MWB once a month for a full system scan.

You don't have to uninstall and reinstall it over & over. You can just leave it installed but disable real-time protection, and then only run Malwarebytes when you want to do a full scan. This is how the free version works. Just remember to update the database before scanning.

Also think seriously about installing an anti-virus that is friendlier to your older system, for real-time scanning (MSE? AVG Free?).

[bit]

I can reinstall MWB once a month for a full system scan.

You don't have to uninstall and reinstall it over & over. You can just leave it installed but disable real-time protection, and then only run Malwarebytes when you want to do a full scan. This is how the free version works. Just remember to update the database before scanning.

Also think seriously about installing an anti-virus that is friendlier to your older system, for real-time scanning (MSE? AVG Free?).

Thank you. If I recall correctly, there wasn't any way to disable MWB; it was very persistent about staying active (not trying to contradict you, but that's how I recall it).

I use Norton 360 Premium, which also scans my emails.
I put it in 'Silent Mode' before video watching, but it's still quite a load on the OS, yes.
Not sure what would be a good safe alternative.
I used to use BitDefender, until it began scrambling and losing emails.

[app103]

Thank you. If I recall correctly, there wasn't any way to disable MWB; it was very persistent about staying active (not trying to contradict you, but that's how I recall it).

Go to Settings > Advanced Settings

Uncheck the first 3 options. Then reboot and see if that prevents it from starting up on its own. (it's grayed out in mine because I have the free version and can neither enable nor disable it)



While you are in the advanced settings, you might also want to check the last box too, for less stress on your system while you are scanning.

I use Norton 360 Premium, which also scans my emails.
I put it in 'Silent Mode' before video watching, but it's still quite a load on the OS, yes.
Not sure what would be a good safe alternative.
I used to use BitDefender, until it began scrambling and losing emails.

Until they dropped support for 9x, I used to use AVG Free on my old snail PC, mainly because it was light enough to use on an old slow system that didn't have much resources to spare. It was highly recommended by a friend, back in 2003, when I had complaints about anti-virus software killing my machine. (Besides frequent BSOD's at startup, McAfee also froze the machine for at least 3 minutes every time an icon for any type of server software or rar file appeared anywhere on my screen, which caused major problems at startup when the icons on my taskbar were loading)

I don't know if it is still just as light, but back then it sure was great. I never even noticed it was running. (and I am talking about running their v7.5 in 2006, on a 233MHz Pentium I, 64mb RAM PC manufactured in 1997.) That one change eliminated 99% of the remaining BSOD's and screen freezes that PC had, and gave it a new life.

I still have a small form factor Pentium 4, 3.0 GHz with 1G RAM running XP, for which I have always used MSE. That's another antivirus light enough that I have never noticed it running, unless it is doing its weekly scheduled full system scan. That does cause a slight slowdown on that machine, but nothing that would be a show stopper. Other than that short span of time each week, I have never had to even think about disabling it while watching videos, which has always been one of the primary uses for that machine (music, movies, plus spare and/or emergency PC).

So, you might want to give either of those a try on your machine to see if it works out better for you than Norton.

[bit]

^I am seriously considering AVG free, and thank you very much for this.