Betty wrote and asked:
> How do you set a system restore point?
To which Alice (I think) replied about how to do it.
But the restore points beg the question IMO. What
if the "Service Pack" actually causes your system not
to boot! This IS a documented problem at the M$
web site! You can't run the restore point to go back
unless the system at least partly boots. And if the system
doesn't boot, how do you get to the M$ website to read the
instructions about how to use the console to restore your system
after SP2 trashed it, assuming the instructions work! What if there
are other undocumented problems? I didn't see anything
at the M$ web site documenting the problems I had, so there
could be lots of other problems out there!
Restore points are certainly a good thing for a buggy OS
like Windoze to have. But they assume that at least some
of the OS works. They assume that the partition on
your hard drive where they are kept remains accessible.
So by all means go ahead and use restore points, but
it is a mistake to rely only on them. We should back-up
our data off of the hard disk, Family files and any other
genealogy research files you want to keep as well as
pictures, tax records, etc. There have been other threads
about how to do off HD backups before, so I'll not rehash
them today.
Finally I should point out that the nowhere in the printed
envelope that the SP2 update comes it does it say you should
backup your data before starting to install. In fact it does say
"Please install the enclosed CD immediately to ensure your
Windows XP based PC has the latest..." Implying that one
should just go ahead and to the install right away ("IMMEDIATELY")
without first backing up your data. But restore points neither
save nor restore anything in the My Documents folder,
or other types of files. The XP help files have a curious way
of wording this. "System restore protects your personal files
by not restoring any files in the My Documents folder."
jr
Legacy User Group Etiquette guidelines can be found at:
http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp
To find past messages, please go to our searchable archives at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup%40mail.millenniacorp.com/
To unsubscribe please visit:
http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/LegacyLists.asp
