When and what version of Ccleaner started erasing restore points. I did not want to erase my restore points. Ccleaner must be set to erase retore points by default and I did not know it. Please tell me how to stop this. I cannot find it in any settings. I have version 5.63.7540 free and this just came without warning.
I was setting up a new Windows 10 computer and carfully setting retore points and they are all gone. I went to my old Windows 7 PC and it has been happening there also. I did not know it.
I am not talking about the System restore tool. I am talking about running Ccleaner and it is removing restore points somehow on both my machines. What is going on?
Thank you for your reply. First of all in my panic I just saw restore points missing when I tested my Win7 computer and forgot to check show more points box. They were there. Also there is no box next to wipe free space on Ccleaner on my Win 7 computer.
I see it is checked now on my Win 10 computer which is a fresh install on a new machine. It must have been checked by default and I am sick about it. I want to be clear and do the right thing. If I uncheck the box next to wipe free space, I can run Ccleaner and my restore points will not be erased. Honestly I do not know how it happened unless this is some sort of default setting I was not aware of. I have had and used Ccleaner for years. I did not check that box. Wiping free space would take too long anyway as I understand it. I never did it. BTW when I unchecked the box it went away and the interface on my Win10 machine looks the same as the Win7 computer.
Am I safe now? Shouldn't people be warned of this?
Thank you. I know the restore points are gone for good but I hope this will not happen again.
Whenever its been queried before it's usually turned out to be Windows itself that is removing the restore points. Wipe Free space just cleans up the entries afterwards (because Windows have got rid of them and the space is now free).
There are various reasons why Windows will do that and the fact you say you were 'setting up' Windows 10 may well have triggered Windows to do it.
There have also been a few problems in the last few years where Windows has not actually made RPs even when it says it has, or deleted them shortly after creation.
I've also seen problems with Win10 saying there is a restore point, but when they try to use it Windows reports it's doesn't exist.
It's not default checked, maybe you checked on accident. Wipe free space first fills the empty space; windows takes the as a need to free up space and nukes restore points to regain space.
Well you have both been kind and understanding.I feel so bad I did it to myself.I still don’t understand why there was even a box to check when there was none on my Win7 Ccleaner.I am glad it is now also gone on my Win10 Ccleaner.Honestly don’t remember checking it or why I would have thought I wanted to clean free space on a new computer.
Well the deed is done.Now that the box is gone and there will be no more wipe free space actions, are my restore points safe?Or will Win10 have to keep taking restore points because Ccleaner wrote in all the free space?
I think I understand the explanation but I don’t understand when Win10 will stop taking free space from System Restore.
Restore points are deleted by Windows regularly when the allocated space is full. However Windows certainly should not be deleting the current one unless you've changed the default pagefile setting to off. I would check that.
There is a default amount of restore point space but you can manually set it to use whatever you want. More space means more restore points are kept for longer rather than Windows deleting them to make space for new ones. On modern systems each 'key' restore point can easily be 1GB but they range from about 600MB upwards.
For Win 7:-
Start > Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced system setting >System Properties > System Protection tab > Available Drives > Configure button.
The allocated restore point volume may have free space but I can not believe that accidentally enabling that CCleaner Advanced setting could have happened let alone do what as described. If you enabled it there should be a warning message about the extra time the cleaning will take and that the recommendation is not to use it. Similarly the CCleaner System Restore management tool can not be used accidentally to delete all restore points.
The only thing that I've come across that will unintendedly remove all restore points is on dual boot system, specifically, WinXP and Win7. When WinXP is launched it will see the Win7 restore points as being corrupt and takes it upon itself to delete them all.
Despite several methods described in various articles online supposedly stopping that happening the only solution that works is to have the two OS on separate drives and disable the other drive either physically or via the BIOS/UEFI SATA port controls. Utter pain and one reason I gave up on the dual boot and installed XPMode on a VM instead. Used that way it does not delete any restore points.
Backing up restore points is possible, in theory. They're stored in the System Volume Information folder which is a system folder usually hidden by default. A backup imaging program like EAsUS Todo can copy system files but whilst I've done that I've never had the need or guts to test restore a restore point using the backup. It would probably require all sorts of permission changes to do it.
I'd be looking for a culprit somewhere other than CCleaner. Anti-virus software would be high up on my alternative suspects list.............hmmmmmmm.
It can/will also happen that Restore Points will be removed with a Windows 10 Feature Update, (eg. from 1809 to 1903), but not always.
This is because a Win10 Feature Update is actually a change to the operating system, and so Restore Points from the old version will not (always) work with the new version.
In the past there were some complaints from users who had tried to do just that after a feature update and use an old restore point to go back, which of course crashed their machine and they had to reinstall from scratch.
(Think of it a bit like trying to use an XP restore point in Win7, it just wouldn't work).
So to prevent that, during a Feature Update Win10 will now remove the old Restore Points if they would not be compatible with the updated OS.
So Windows updates sometimes do that now? That is bad, particularly as Windows itself should, automatically, put in a Restore Point before updating. If it is rendered useless by the update why would they do that and delete all the Restore Points including the one they have just created?
That explanation does not seem to really fit the facts unless this is unintended Windows 10 behaviour ie. bug of some sort.
Whenever Restore Points and AVAST are linked in some way, like this through CCleaner, I always get a bit suspicious. They have a history of interfering with Restore Point use, something I've regularly objected too over the years. No evidence has been provided it is anything like that but something deleted all the OP's Restore Points and they said the same thing is happening on a Win7 PC as well.
What type of software might they have on both machines that is being updated on a daily basis and has high enough permissions to be able to do this accidentally or deliberately?
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So Windows updates sometimes do that now? That is bad, particularly as Windows itself should, automatically, put in a Restore Point before updating. If it is rendered useless by the update why would they do that and delete <strong>all</strong> the Restore Points including the one they have just created?
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That explanation does not seem to really fit the facts unless this is unintended Windows 10 behaviour ie. bug of some sort.
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It's not a bug, and is intended. You have to get your head around the fact that Win10 works differently from previous Windows versions.
You have to remember that each Feature Update is effectively changing the OS, the version number, so keeping old restore points is useless.
Just like updating from XP to 7 would not keep XP restore points, it would be useless to do so.
The big difference with Win10 is that this now happens automatically every six months, without you having to buy the new version and install it yourself.
There is a different method of 'rolling back' to the previous version following a Win10 Feature Update if you are not happy with that update, because Restore Points do not, can not, work to roll back in such a situation.
Windows keeps the needed files for the old version for a month. What used to be called 'Windows.old' but because things work differently with 10 is now 'WinSXS'. (SXS = Side-by-Side).
The update roll back is only available for that month, after which Windows deletes the unneeded SXS files.
I'm not sure if 'rolling back' to a previous version would also restore the RP's that you had saved with that version? (I've never had to try it).
Although I have very little trust in System Restore (I trust verifiable disk images instead) I did enable it last year in Win10 v1803, and now that I'm on v1909 it's still enabled. Win10 has never disabled it from what I see for my C:\ drive and it reports the space it's using which grows slightly daily.
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Restore points are deleted by Windows regularly when the <strong>allocated</strong> space is full. However Windows certainly should not be deleting the current one unless you've changed the default pagefile setting to off. I would check that.
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The default is system management of the pagefile but you can manually set it to use the recommended minimum which is roughly 50% more than your RAM. With 4GB of RAM that would be 6GB - enough for 5 -10 restore points. On modern systems each 'key' restore point can easily be 1GB but they range from about 600MB upwards.
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To view your pagefile settings (Win7) Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced system settings (in the left side menu) > Performance - Settings button > Advanced tab > Virtual memory Change button. Its fairly self-explanatory.
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The pagefile may have free space but I can not believe that accidentally enabling that CCleaner Advanced setting could have happened let alone do what as described. If you enabled it there should be a warning message about the extra time the cleaning will take and that the recommendation is not to use it. Similarly the System Restore management tool can not be used accidentally to delete all restore points.
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what has the pagefile to do with windows restore points?
and yes -> you can use the windows system restore management to delete alle restore points...
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If you enabled it there should be a warning message about the extra time the cleaning will take and that the recommendation is not to use it.
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Like I said above it all comes down to what you are expecting to see from RP's - and that has changed from used to be the case with older Windows OS's.
If you expect to see what used to happen in the past then you shouldn't, things change.
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what has the pagefile to do with windows restore points?
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and yes -> you can use the windows system restore management to delete alle restore points...
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Oops, apologies for that I was getting the pagefile (virtual memory) mixed up with the reserved space allocated to restore points which is adjustable in much the same way.
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Path (Win 7) to what I was talking about to check is:-
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Start > Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced system setting >System Properties > System Protection tab >Available Drives > Configure button.
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I have to point out, again, that the OP reports this problem on both a Win10 <strong>and </strong>Win7 machine.
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On the use of RPs all I can say is that I had to use one only last week. After the last Windows update I discovered that a program I use regularly on one PC was not working as intended. Rolling it back using the RP Windows had put in itself cured the problem but pretty much proved it was the cause. Quick, simple and most sensible solution I'd suggest.
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Thankfully carefully re-updating Windows one 'Important' item at a time rebooting after each rather than doing them all at once avoided whatever the problem was repeating.
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Well it happened again.No drive wiping this time.I have been manually creating RP’s (3) and then running normal file deletion, that’s all. The RP’s were fine. I created an RP before installing Microsoft Office 2019.So far so good.Went to bed.Checked system restore this morning and all the restore points are gone.I have Windows update on pause so it wasn’t an update.I have no idea how this is happening.
Earlier I had asked if Windows would think my C: drive was full forever and keep wiping RP’s away every time it needed space.That does not appear to be the case.
Also, I have set System Restore’s allocation of drive space at 20% which is 47.54 GB.I have today made three more RP’s throughout the day and the total space they take up is 282.29 MB.
I do not understand why Windows keeps taking RP’s.
If using any non-Microsoft disk defrag software that automatically defrags disks that might cause it - if that isn't the issue please ignore this.
If your OS drive is an SSD and by looking at your screenshot you're using minimal space why not regularly (daily or weekly) use a disk imaging software that can make smaller incremental backups of only the changes taking place since a full disk image instead of relying upon System Restore which is obviously failing you for whatever reason.