Windows 10 - Restore Points are being deleted

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

I understand the inconvenience caused. I will be glad to assist you with this.

This issue could occur due to one of the following reasons:

1. If the maximum storage size limit is set to low for your shadow storage.

2. You manually disable system restore

3. If you perform disk cleanup and remove all the restore points.

You mentioned that you have configured the usage to 4%.  In-order to identify is this is the reason, I would suggest you to increase the disk usage and check if the issue persists.

1. Press windows key + R to open the run command.

2. Type sysdm.cpl and press enter

3. Click on "system protection" tab and click "configure"

4. Under Disk Space Usage, move the Max Usage slider to the right to increase the disk space usage for System Restore points

5. Click "ok" and close the window.

Do get back to us with the result. We will be glad to help if you need further assistance.

Restore points have a limited usefulness after which they are automatically deleted by the operating system. Trying to restore an old restore point can make your PC unstable. In Windows 7, restore points had a 90-day life; that period has been reduced for Windows 10, but I don't know how long it is now.

In addition, all restore points are deleted after upgrades, like the recent Fall Upgrade, as they are no longer applicable and restoring them could damage your copy of Windows.

Don't confuse a restore point with a backup. These are two different things. Backups are easy to do, and you schedule them to run automatically. You can keep a backup for as long as you like.

Hi,

It shouldn't be an issue of storage space as I have allowed for ~30Gb and when I checked the 2 restore points I had created were only using 2Gb and my hdd  generally has at least 150Gb free space.

It seems that my system only kept the restore point for a week.

(I definitely didn't manually disable system restore.)

I have increased the space to 5% to see if that will help in the future.

However, I would still like to know where the system restore points can be found so that I can back them up if this happens again (before this happens again).

I'll let you know if the restore points stick around for longer.

Hi,

So I've been keeping an eye on things and it is still deleting restore points, but it seems to coincide with something worse.

For some reason my computer keeps eating the empty space on my hard drive. It drops from 150Gb free to <10Gb, in fact 20 minutes ago I had less than 3Mb of space on my hard drive. After restarting my hard drive space is restored to 150Gb and my 'excess' restore points no longer exist.

It's done this a couple of times in the last week. No idea why.

Hi,

Thank you for updating us. I apologize for the delayed response. Let me help you.

The deletion of restore points may be caused by any one of the following by-design conditions:

-       You run out of disk space on the system drive or on any one of the available non-system drives, and System Restore stops responding and stops monitoring your system.

-       You manually turn System Restore off.

-       A restore point reaches an age of 90 days. The restore point is then deleted because 90 days is the default time to live.

To resolve this issue, adjust the maximum shadow storage allocation. To do this, follow the steps listed below:

1.    Press Windows key + W on the keyboard to search Settings, type “System” in the Search box and then click System from the list of results.

2.    Click System protection in the task pane.

3.    Under Protection Settings click to select Local Disk (C:) (System) and then click Configure.

4.    Under Disk Space Usage, move the Max Usage slider to the right to increase the disk space usage for System Restore points.

Note: If protection is turned on for additional drives you might consider increasing the Max Usage for those drives as well.

I hope the information helps. Please keep us posted on the issue. We will be happy to assist you accordingly.

Thank you.

I have the same problem: I manually created 2 new restore points last night, giving me 3 total. I have set 25% of my drive, or 94GB,  reserved for system restore. I did not check this AM, but a couple of hours ago an automatic restore point was created, and the prior 3 are gone.

I see nothing in TaskScheduler-SystemRestore about deleting old points, but for the time being, I am going to turn off SR in Task Scheduler to see if this is the problem, because if memory serves me right, it seems that the restore points have always been disappearing after an TS-SR automatic creation.

Addendum: Even after disabling SR, automatic restore point creation ran and deleted all but the one it was automatically creating. I am hopeful turning on Volume Shadow Copy will work because it was off on my brand-new system:

answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/system-restore-keeps-deleting-the-restore-points/77b5dc7c-1036-4e6b-9ca3-6fbd88630745?auth=1

2/23 addendum: Automatic restore point creation still occurring and still deleting all old restore points.

2/12/2017 addendum: I created a Restore Point Creation in Taskscheduler not long after this post. I am 98% sure that it was working fine. Today I ran a Win10 update - which included an NVIDIA update (12/29/16) - and as usual when an NVIDIA update occurs, my desktop icons get scrambled. Thankfully, I ALWAYS do an AOMEI backup before an NVIDIA update, and often any MSFT WIN update,  and could restore. I ran WIN check for updates after restoring and it proceeded to reinstall the update without pausing/asking. Icons scrambled again but I took a screen print of them before hand. I was even working on this edit and it came back intact. Regardless, a non-windows backup program is mandatory IMO and I love AOMEI (I paid for professional but when I used free copy, it was good).

I've the same problems.

It's nothing to do with any of your 1st 3 suggestions, or indeed any others that Microsoft have mentioned here on this website.

Why on earth they can't issue updates that can at least utilise my restore points instead of going back to a previous update I don't know. You might as well do away with restore points all together to save us all wasting more time, it's bad enough not being to turn off updates anyway.

To be honest they have almost made a 'sows ear from a silk purse'.

It's all very well you saying an update renders old restore points useless so deletes them but everytime I get an upgrade I have to delete all the W10 apps that are useless to me. That's apart from waiting so long for you to install them..... don't switch off your computer etc etc. usually when I'm about to go to bed!

Having now done this 3 or 4 times it really is time for me to get back W7.

You have created a monster......................... which takes over our lives, WELL DONE MICROSOFT.

Win 10 restore points are vanishing from my PC, too.

On 04/01/17 after tweaking file backup schedules, I checked Win 10 System Restore for the first time since upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10 in 2016.  Discovered no restore points at all, even though system protection for C: was configured “on.”  I changed the max usage slider from lowest setting (~1%, 10.0 GB) to 10% (68.83 GB) to ensure plenty of space.  Then I created a restore point manually & verified it appeared (by itself) in the restore point list, with proper date/time, my description & type = manual.

On 04/02/17 in AM I opened Task Scheduler & found no triggers for task SR, even though the last run time was listed as 03/31/17.  I created a trigger for SR execution daily at 1:00 AM.  Then I opened System Restore & found no restore points!  The point I created manually on 04/01 had vanished.  Later on 04/02 I opened System Restore again & it showed 1 restore point created on 04/02 06:57:30 PM with description & type = Windows Update.

On 04/03/17 in AM I opened System Restore & the Win Update point dated 04/02 was still listed.  However, there was no point corresponding to task SR, even though Task Scheduler reported that SR had “completed successfully” earlier on 04/03.

On 04/04/17 in AM I opened System Restore & found no restore points!  Like my manual point on 04/01, the Win Update point on 04/02 had vanished, and still no point was listed for task SR, even though Task Scheduler reported that SR had “completed successfully” on 04/03 & on 4/04.  I created another manual restore point & verified that it appeared by itself in the list.  Later on 04/04 I looked again.  My latest manual point had vanished, but a Win Update restore point created in PM on 04/04 was listed.  As of 04/04/17 09:48PM, it’s still there, but I expect it to vanish by 04/05.

I have read all the posts on “Windows 10 – Restore Points are being deleted” ranging from 11/16/15 to 02/09/17.  If there’s a solution for my problem, I haven’t found it yet.  To reiterate, System Protection is configured “on” for C:, 68.83 GB of disk space is allowed, current usage (from 04/04 Win Update restore point) is only 86.17 MB, C: has 491 GB free out of 688 GB capacity.  I can create a restore point manually, and points are being created by Win Update, but System Restore never lists more than one point, and that point vanishes by the next day, even if no additional point has yet been created.

What else can I do to keep at least one restore point available at all times?

Hi,


Please provide the answers to the following for us to be able to learn more about the issue you're experiencing with restore points:

• Is your Windows 10 up-to-date?
  
• Have you tried running the System File Checker? System File Checker or SFC is a utility in Windows that allows users to scan for corruptions in Windows system files and restore these corrupted files. If you haven't done an SFC scan, you can follow the steps found on this link.
  

Meanwhile, you can follow the methods below to check file system errors:
Method 1 - Disk Error Checking

1. Open the File Explorer, then click This PC from the left pane.
   
2. Right-click on the drive you will be checking, then choose Properties. Example: Local Disk (C:)
   
3. Click the Tools tab.
   
4. Click the Check button under Error checking. This will check the drive for file system errors.
   
5. Click Scan drive.

Method 2 - Running the Check Disk

1. Right-click Start, then choose Command Prompt (Admin) to show the Command Prompt window.
   
2. Type chkdsk /f C: then press the Enter key from the keyboard to check the Local Disk C:. You can also do this for the other drives that you have.
   
3. Restart your computer.
   

Let us know the result after running the above mentioned methods.


Regards.

Michelle, thanks much for your kind reply to my 4/4/17 query above re Win10 vanishing restore points.  Bottom line as of 4/8: I can still create a restore point manually; task SR is “completed successfully” every day, but never creates a restore point; any restore point I create still vanishes, e.g., point created manually 4/7/17 7:59:51 PM vanished from System Restore by 4/8/17 12:33 PM.

I had already scanned C: via Properties > Tools in Win10 and then via CHKDSK /R.  All OK except CHKDSK found bad clusters in one file, WebCacheV01.dat.  More on that at end of this post, following answers to the questions you asked.

Windows 10 up-to-date?  Win Update has installed updates periodically.  PC update history showed last “Update for Windows 10 Version 1607 for x64-based Systems (KB3150513) Successfully installed on 3/16/2017”.   On 4/7/17 I checked for updates manually, downloaded & installed KB4015438, which seems to be most recent for Win10 v1607 on //support.microsoft.com/…/update-history.  More on this after report on SFC, below.

System File Checker?  On 4/7/17 I ran sfc /scannow, as you recommended.  When verification 100% complete: “Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.”

FYI, installing KB3150513 temporarily inactivated Microsoft Edge after PC restart.  IE 11 was unaffected.  Found suggestion on //answers.microsoft.com 1^st to run Windows App Troubleshooter (didn’t work – said to sign in with my Microsoft account, but I couldn’t find where to sign in) & 2^nd to run SFC, which I hadn’t yet done, so I ran SFC (A-OK, see above).  Edge still wouldn’t start at all, so I cycled power on PC.  Then Edge ran normally.

Here’s xtra info re CHKDSK /R result.  Stages 1 & 2 ran A-OK.  Stage 3 cleaned up 6073 unused index entries & security descriptors & compacted the security descriptor stream.  Stage 4 encountered a “disk read error” & said “The disk does not have enough space to replace bad clusters detected in \Users\owner\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WebCache\WebCacheV01.dat”.  Stage 5 corrected errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute & in the Volume Bitmap.

I can send you the whole CHKDSK /R report, if you want.  After CHKDSK /R, installing KB3150513 & running SFC, I can still create restore points, but they still vanish in a day.  I’d be interested in any advice you might offer re WebCacheV01.dat.  It’s the only file not backed up when Windows backs up all of C:.  I gather it stores IE 10 & 11 browsing history, but my IE 11 runs fine.  My primary goal is still to create a restore point that will last 90 days.

How do you recommend me to proceed?  Thanks again for your time & expertise.