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It should show "ONLY" current O.S. restore points.


vsrawat

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In Tools, System Restore
it seems to be showing restore points of all O.S. on all HDDs.

I have 2 HDD and have two O.S. on each, As you can see in the attached pic, I am on W8.1 on one HDD, but it is very much showing restore points of other partitions of the same HDD (two W10 500GB ones), and also showing two restore points of other SDD.

That is wrong. Windows works on the concept of current O.S.'s restore point, and we are used to it. So our deleting other Restore point might make that OS unrecoverable.

And when you say that you have dimmed latest restore point so that it cannot be deleted by mistake, the other disks and other partitions all are having one latest restore point, so by your logic, that should be undeletable. But here we can very much delete them , and we will face the consequence.

So I thing showing all Disks' all O.S.'s restore point is a bug. It should show "ONLY" current O.S. restore points.

If it is showing other O.S.'s restore point, it should somehow highlight which DISK which partition that is about. It is my own nomenclature that made it clear to me that these are different Disks, different OS. but other might not name them like this and might end up deleting valid last restore points.

Thanks.

ccleaner err.jpg

Edited by vsrawat
pic added but not appearing so added again.
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Guest johnccleaner

Thanks for this report! I confess, I've never seen this reported before (and I would surely have recalled it as it's so odd).

I'm letting our development team know about this behavior - and including the picture you sent along, thanks for that as that quite nicely illustrates the behavior - so it can be considered further. I wonder if these restore points are all held in the same place (X:\System Volume Information?), leading to the software's confusion and inability to determine that there are multiple 'latest' restore points.

In the mean time, though, I'd definitely recommend continuing to label the restore points as you are, as that should help keep this from being much of an issue for you.

Thanks again for letting us know about that!

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I am a home user, having no classroom computer literacy. I am not aware about any technical aspects of restore point. So I am unable to add anything to it.

I would be happy that you have taken up this issue and would be reolving it for all your milllions of users and they will use the software happily.

Thanks for the wonderful software.

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Guest johnccleaner

Thanks for your kind words and understanding. :) 

On one hand, I can see an argument for showing all the restore points - you might want to clean them out even if you're not in the OS they refer to, or perhaps that OS is corrupt or otherwise nonfunctional. At the same time, I absolutely see your point of not wanting to remove this safety net from another installed OS.

(And, I confess, I'm largely self-taught as well, and thus far have not much interaction with the finer details of System Restore; I was simply speculating at that point - so no worries about not being able to add anything there.)

Like I said, we'll certainly consider it further to try to determine what the best approach would be for this - while dual-boots and such are hardly universal practice, they're common enough that it's worth considering, and we do want to improve our software for all our users!

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If the software can tell which O.S. (or the disk or partition volume name or partition drive letter) the restore point is for, I mean if it can be determined, then people will understand promptly and act in an informed learned way which one to delete and which one to keep.

You are currently showing the date and time of creation of the restore point, that is also some help for recently created ones that we will remeber which os we were in at that day/ time, but as the restore points go back long time depending on the space allocated, we might not remember.

I have named my restore point this way, but you might have seen that almost all other software don't bother to name the restore points this elaborately. Revo installer just mentions which software was uninstalled (I think not even date).  Driver Easy just has the same name for all restore point (No other detail, not even date), so one might think that these are restore points for the current O.S. and would delete unknowingly.

Seems all the major software as not equipped to handle multidisk, multi-boot, mutli-O.S. systems. Or, I think it is MS that has made this part so complex and had not bothered to improve it since when it was introduced.

Thanks.

 

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NO, no, there is a major problem.

Please have a look at the pic

1850916257_ccleanererr2.jpg.a5d4568f3c8f4f8e7104c713a6d00d6f.jpg

The top restore point ccleaner is showing was created by driver easy today for other O.S., I don't know whether this one is for other w8.1 or other w10 installations, in both I ran drivereasy to update all drivers almost in the same hour. I seem to have forgotten to select my timezone to India, so it is taking window's default of some U.S. Area and showing tomorrow's date/ time.

The second restore point I created just now in my current old w8.1, and thus it has correct date and time of today.

(Other restore points that I had shown in previously sent images got deleted by MS when I configured sytem protection on other SDD (W8.1 or w10). Even the one that drivereasy had created while driver updation, also disappeared when I set configured sytem protection on next partition (w10 or W8.1), so only single one is showing. It always happens.)

--

But you noticed? ccleaner has assumed the "last date-time" is the latest one for current O.S. so it will not allow me to delete that.

But that one is not for current O.S. That is for other O.S. and that is protected but I am allowed to delete the latest single restore point of my current O.S. If I delete it I am left without any restore point for my current O.S.

That goes against MS' and ccleaner's declaration that latest restore point (for current O.S.?) is not allowed to be deleted.

--

Till you figure out some method of finding and showing Disks/ drives/ O.S.s for which various restore points are, you can immediately add an elaborate warning/ disclaimer on above screen that "it is is showing restore points of all Disks, all Drives, all O.S. and is protecting the one with last date-time, so the users use their discretion to find out which one(s) they really want to delete".

Thanks.

 

 

 

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I'm not sure if I should delve in here, but if each O/S has its own partition, which is implied in the first post and as far as i know is mandatory, then each O/s should have its own  registry, set of files etc. The idea that an application on one O/S can access a single bit of data held on another partition is to me, the way to madness. There has to be something here that I, at least, can't grasp.

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You are right in using the term "madness".

And there is no information available on entire internet to figure out the fine points of it, I have been searching for it for years.

Seems ccleaner has looked at some place to find the shown information about restore points, but that place has an "all encompassing" information of every restore point on entire pc. Seems there has to be some specific place in registry or somewhere where the information related to the current O.S.' restore points is stored.

After all, Windows itself figures out about the restore points of the current O.S. only somehow when we go to anything in Systems - Protection. So that information has to be somewhere.

So, ccleaner needs to find out whether such current-O.S.-specific restore points are stored or information about it is stored, and read from there instead.

Firtly, the restore point has to reside on the same disk otherwise if we remove the other disk then we are left without access to restore points for the current O.S., that doesn't happen.

Then, the restore point has to reside on the same partition as the O.S., otherwise if it is on some other O.S, partition and that O.S. fails to work and we format that other partition, then our current O.S.' restore points are also gone, that doesn't happen.

So the restore points has to be on that very partition where that specific O.S. is installed.

There is a folder "System Volume Information" in the root of all partitions, but its access is denied to users so I couldn't see what is in there. That could be one place to analyze.

Thanks.
 

 

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4 hours ago, vsrawat said:

There is a folder "System Volume Information" in the root of all partitions, but its access is denied to users so I couldn't see what is in there. That could be one place to analyze.

The System Volume Information folders I've found in my brief tinkering can only be messed around using for instance some Linux distros which I found out when removing a China antivirus program from a computer that for who knows what reason stores data in the System Volume Information folders which I was able to delete manually.

As for CCleaner's handling of the restore points my only guess is that it might have something to do with having administrator priveleges -- but it really shouldn't have that ability if you're for example using Win10 to delete restore points on separate Win8.1 system. It all sounds like a recipe for disaster if you're relying upon CCleaner to "manage" restore points.

One thing to consider is to also get into the habit of making disk image backups because restore points are known for not always working.

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Andavari

> "It all sounds like a recipe for disaster if you're relying upon CCleaner to "manage" restore points. "

Ccleaner presented a new feature, I used it, Why should I have doubted a feature presented by somewith with high repute of ccleaner?

--

Actually, Ccleaner is the only software, apart from Windows, that even mentions "restore points" and allows me to delete ones that I am sure I don't want or I have created fresher restore points since then that will do my work in case my box runs into problem. Windows itself doesn't provlde option of deleting any restore point.

If you are aware of other non-MS software for the above management of Restore Points, please mention to me.

So, I am very happy to consider possibility that Ccleaner will soon overcome this teething problem of introducing a new feature of deleting restore point, and then Ccleaner will become universal boss of handling restore points, it will become even better and more handy than mother Windows itself.

So, I am keenly interested that ccleaner analyzes this issue and finds some solution.

It will be sad that a budding feature gets discarded for ever due to the above issue.

--

Once ccleaner solves this problem, I would suggest ccleaner adds option to save (backup) an existing restore point to elsewhere, and then restore from to Windows default location when we need that. There is no software doing this, and as you said restore points keep on disappearing right when we need them.

Thanks.

 

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23 minutes ago, vsrawat said:

  Windows itself doesn't provlde option of deleting any restore point.

 

 

Quote

: Delete One or More Restore Points From PowerShell

Advanced users might want to delete one or more points from PowerShell, or the Command Prompt. We're going to just touch on this method, so anyone looking for the commands has them.

Open Command Prompt or PowerShell as administrator and type in vssadmin list shadows. Any line you see with Shadow Copy ID: is a Restore Point.

So, to remove one or more of these Restore Points, you need to type in vssadmin delete shadows /Shadow= followed by the long numbers that follow Shadow Copy ID: as mentioned above.

Of course, you can also delete all of your Restore Points from here as well. Type in vssadmin delete shadows /all to delete everything.
 

Item 3 here

https://www.majorgeeks.com/content/page/how_to_delete_some_or_all_system_restore_points_on_windows_10.html

 

Support contact

https://support.ccleaner.com/s/contact-form?language=en_US&form=general

or

support@ccleaner.com

 

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My box shows like this. There are 3+4+4 entries.

I am unable to figure out which one is for which Disk, which partition, which O.S.?

With two disks, when we boot from one or other, The Drive letters also change. And it is not showing Date Time of creation of these.

I cannot tweak at all in it.

Thanks.

restorepoint1.jpg

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Guest johnccleaner

I'd suspect that the Originating Machine items would be relevant: "DESKTOP-7E9VL2T" corresponds to one OS installation, while "ilLUSIon-pc81" corresponds to another? 

That does seem to go with the supposition that I'd made that these Restore Points are indeed all in the System Volume Information folder for the drive, mixed together in a way; whether that provides information that would be suitable in classifying these Restore Points... possibly, but that goes beyond my expertise, I fear. I will leave that to our development team to consider further. :)

Though, you do mention that the installations are on different partitions - each partition should, so far as I'm aware, have its own System Volume Information folder that should prevent such 'crosstalk', so that only puzzles me further.

(Thanks, Hazel, for digging up the PowerShell instructions for managing Restore Points - wasn't aware of that either, though I suppose I really ought to have!)

With that in mind, I do need to say that System Restore is a Windows process - therefore, the absolute safest possible means by which to manage it would be the tools built into Windows, so if that is your concern, then I would suggest using the Windows System Restore tool itself to manage the Restore Points; that does mean you'd need to do in each installation of Windows, of course. 

Also, just to clarify, the Restore Point deletion feature is not a new feature - it was introduced in v2.19.901 in May of 2009 (only supporting Vista and XP at that point); we don't have any plan of removing it, though, so no worries there. :)

With that in mind, I do not believe it is optimized for your specific use case. It's intended for a user with a single OS installed to manage the Restore Points associated with that OS, as that represents the overwhelming majority of our users.

As an aside, System Restore itself is also meant to be simple, 'first line of repair' option for users that otherwise just stays out of their way and doesn't need management; I suspect this is why the tools built into Windows are fairly minimal, and why so few third-party programs interact with it. (CCleaner is also the only one I'm personally aware of; I'm sure there must be others out there, I've just not had the opportunity to look for them.)

For the sorts of needs you're suggesting, I think I'd second Andavari's suggestion of making 'known good' disk images periodically, as that will tend to be a more reliable and robust way of repairing your system - I've seen System Restore outright fail too many times to want to rely on it, truthfully.

Edited by johnccleaner
Misspelled 'disk' as 'disc'
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One simpler method could be to show the "name" of the computer, for which a particular restore point it.

The computer name is stored in folder C:\Windows\debug in the file NetSetup.LOG

This file has history of name change and last line would be "08/28/2021 15:22:21:587 NetpValidateName: name 'ilLUSIon-81-500' is valid for type 5" from which we can find the name between "single quotes'.

That is possible if the name of the pc was ever changed by user, or was named at all to begin with, and if the names of all Windows are kept different. Otherwise, if pc was never named, then also Windows allots a unique name starting with DESKTOP-XXXXXX, but I don't know where it is stored as it is not in above NetSetup.LOG file, actually even that file  would not exist if pc was never name, I guess. Or if the user has deleted all Windows  logs, then I don't know whether this file also gets deleted. Or I don't know whether the user might give same name to different installations.

All this will lead to confusion, but that will make the user wise to pc-name all Instalations' differently.

I am saying this because when we have turned on system protection for various or all drives and we go to restore the system, Windows dutifully shows the names of all drives for which protection is on, and even allows us to select which drives we want to restore system for. It is compulsory to restore for current O.S. on which the user is executing the restore command, but it advises that it is not require to restore system for other drives, though the user can restore for others also if he/ she so wishes.

That makes me think that Windows is somehow able to connect restore points to PC's name, so we can also link.

If such pcname - restorepoint connection is possible, then we can even add option in the ccleaner Tools-Restore screen whenther user wants to see the restore points of the current O.S. or of all installations, and then we can dim the latest restore points of each O.S. not allowing the user to delete it even inadvertently.

Thanks.

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Oh, Computer name is stored in registry in two keys which has same value, I guess

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName\ComputerName

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName\ActiveComputerName

So, no need to that bother with the presence of that NetSetup.LOG. It can be found directly from registry.

But, how to link this computer name to restore points?

Thanks.

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