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With one exception, Windows Vista System Restore is not a backup program. It doesn't back up your spreadsheets, keep track of your e-mail, or create automatic copies of all those Word documents you have lying around.
Rather, System Restore takes snapshots of Vista that include copies of key system files, all the Registry, various settings for each user — basically, everything that's necessary to roll back Windows to a previous point in time except for your data. It doesn't back up your programs, either. Just Windows.
The exception? Shadow copies.
 | If you use the Vista Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition, Vista's system restore points include not only key system files and settings but also backups of the shadow copies of your data files. Vista thinks of shadow copies as system files, as opposed to data files, and in a sense they are. Although System Restore doesn't back up your data, the three jewel-encrusted versions of Vista do back up your shadow copies. |
The bottom line: No matter which version of Vista you use, you have to make your own file backups.
Vista automatically creates snapshots — called restore points — on these occasions:
- When you install an application (if the installer is a recent one and behaves properly by notifying Windows).
- When you install a Windows update, patch, or service pack.
- When you run a File Backup, either manually or via an automated backup.
- When you install an unsigned driver. An unsigned driver is a program that makes hardware work but hasn't been certified by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs.
- When you manually create a restore point.
- Just before you restore an old restore point (so that you can, in effect, undo the undo if need be).
- Every 24 hours if you keep your computer on all the time, or when your computer wakes up after sleeping and more than 24 hours have passed since the last restore point. Vista waits until no activity has occurred on the machine for a while before creating a restore point.
When you restore a restore point, only Windows gets restored. (If you're running Vista Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate, shadow copies of your data files get restored, too.) That can lead to some mighty confounding behavior.
 | Say you install a program that you think might be unstable. You create a restore point before you install it. The program bombs and takes your system along with it, so you roll back to the restore point. Windows won't know that the program was ever installed — but the program's files are still on your hard drive. If you accidentally try to open one of these files before you have reinstalled the program, there's no telling what might happen. |
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