Turn System Restore on or off

12:10:00 AM | ,

System Restore regularly tracks changes to your computer's system files and uses a feature called system protection to create restore points. System protection is turned on by default on the hard disk that Windows is installed on. You can turn on System Restore for other disks by turning on system protection for those disks.
Watch this video to learn how to turn System Restore on or off (1:22)
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To turn on system protection for a particular disk

You can't turn on system protection for a disk that's formatted using the FAT or FAT32 file systems.
  1. Open System by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, right-clicking Computer, and then clicking Properties.
  2. In the left pane, click System protection. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
  3. Under Protection Settings, click the disk, and then click Configure.
  4. Do one of the following:
    • To be able to restore system settings and previous versions of files, clickRestore system settings and previous versions of files.
    • To be able to only restore previous versions of files, click Only restore previous versions of files.
  5. Click OK, and then click OK again.

To turn off system protection for a particular disk

Turning off system protection for a disk deletes all restore points for that disk. You can't restore the disk using restore points until you turn system protection on again and a new restore point is created. Turning off system protection also deletes any previous versions of files that were saved for that disk. Previous versions are copies of files and folders that Windows automatically saves with restore points.
  1. Open System by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, right-clicking Computer, and then clicking Properties.
  2. In the left pane, click System protection. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
  3. Under Protection Settings, click the disk, and then click Configure.
  4. Click Turn off system protection, click OK, and then click OK again.