How to Fix Windows Registry with Windows' System Restore

Your computer’s registry is so important and there is no doubt that you should watch it over. But even when you are in guard, what if there’s still a problem? What if your computer breaks down? Well it happens sometimes whether or not you constantly take care of it because registry is like a large pile of cabinet that holds million of information of your Windows. That is why you need to create a restore point. If you create a restore point, every time your PC encounters errors you can easily revert back to the state when you created that restore point, assuming the errors happens after you created the restore point. You can find this feature in Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. How? Well let’s see how easy the process is. Just follow these steps:

1. First Thing First, Activate System Restore Feature

• Right click on the 'My Computer' icon on your desktop.
• Click on 'Properties' on the menu that appears.
• Click on the 'System Restore' tab and you'll get "System Properties" panel:
• Make sure that you uncheck (if it's checked) the 'Turn off System Restore' box. That means the system restore is now turned ON.

2. Creating a System Restore Point
It is recommended to set a Restore Point before doing any activity involving your Registry, like doing a scan or repair job. So let’s learn to create one.
• Access the 'System Restore Wizard' through Help and Support Center
• Click on Create a Restore Point
• Give it a name
• Click OK.
Voila, you just created a Restore Point. To restore your system from the point you just created, see below.

3. Restoring from a Restore Point

a. Now let’s say because of a single mistake you’ve done, your computer got crash. No need to hesitate. Just use system restore to turn your computer back to a point when it works perfectly – the Restore Point you have created.

• Remove any disks, CDs or DVDs from your computer. • Restart/turn on the computer.
• Repeatedly press the F8 key as your computer restarts. • You have to do this BEFORE the Windows logo appears.
• Now highlight Last Known Good Configuration and press the Enter key. And, That is all. Incredibly easy and useful, isn’t it?

b. If your computer get srewed up but it manage to load to Windows, you can run the System Restore Wizard to have a wider range of restore point to which state you see the problem had not been occured.

• To do this just access once again 'System Restore Wizard' through Help and Support Center.
• Inside, choose 'Restore my computer to an earlier time' option.
• You will then be provided with range of date you can choose as a restore point. Choose the best and most ideal date that you think the problem has not occured but also not too far away from this current time to minimize other problem you may trigerred by this.
• You're done. Just wait untill the process complete

Please also note that we advise you to use system restore feature after all other means fail. Because system restore always alter your system condition to previous state including before any software installation, driver update, or any change of Windows settings. So we advise you to deploy a more softly and targeted approach, the one that takes care only the problem you are going to solve. So, it is important to know what you want to fix. Don't worry, if you cannot figure out what's going wrong, read our article on Windows Registry Glossary then check if registry software can help you in What Can Registry Software Do. After that, you could use registry software to scan if the concerned problem has been detected. Below you can use Registry Easy scanning engine, it is free to try.

Although Windows System Restore can be helpful in a rainy day, use this recovery feature after all other means fail. System restore always alter your system condition to previous state including before any software installation, driver update, or any change of Windows settings. To prevent any loss of data, this is why you should deploy first a more targeted approach, the one that takes care only the problem you are going to solve. So, it is important to know what you want to fix. As an alternative, you could use a Windows utilities suite. Software like TuneUp Utilities can scan and fix your registry safely.  If the problem is so big that you cannot start your computer, Iolo System Mechanics and Spotmau PowerSuite can help you creating a bootable media from which you can run recovery console like disk surface scanning or Master Boot Record recovery. Spotmau PowerSuite even steps further by integrating more recovery tools like file transfer, hard drive cloning, partition editor, and even password recovery. All these can be done outside Windows. Don't bother trying registry cleaners that promise you can fix all your windows problems like FixTool and RegCure, they are all hoax! Windows registry frequently being used as a scapegoat in promotional campaign of so many poor registry cleaners out there while the fact is very different.