How to Use Windows 7 System Restore

System Restore regularly captures system settings so that you can restore them later if you experience a problem. Using System Restore to return your computer to an earlier state should be one of your last troubleshooting steps, however, because it might cause problems with recently installed applications and hardware.

You can run System Restore from within either the System Recovery tools or from within Windows. To use System Restore from System Recovery tools (which is necessary only if Windows will not start). To use System Restore from within Windows, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click System Restore. The System Restore Wizard appears.
2. If this is the first time you are running the System Restore Wizard, click Next to accept the default restore point. Then, skip to step 4.
3. If you have run System Restore previously and it did not solve the problem, click Choose A Different Restore Point and then click Next.
4. On the Restore Your Computer To The State It Was In Before The Selected Event page, select the most recent restore point when the computer was functioning correctly. Click Next.
5. On the Confirm Your Restore Point page, click Finish. When prompted, click Yes.
6. System Restore restarts your computer. When the restart has completed, System Restore displays a dialog box to confirm that the restoration was successful. Click Close.

If System Restore does not solve your problem, you can do one of two things:

• Undo the system restore The problem might not be the result of changes to your computer at all, but rather a hardware failure. Therefore, using System Restore might not solve your problem. Because restoring the computer to an earlier state might remove important changes to your system configuration, you should undo any restorations that do not solve your problem. To undo a system restore, simply rerun System Restore using the steps in this section and choose the default settings.
• Restore an earlier restore point Your problem may be caused by recent changes to your computer, but the negative changes occurred before the most recent system restore. Therefore, restoring an earlier restore point might solve your problem. Repeat the steps in this section to restore to an earlier restore point.