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Change & Limit System Restore In Windows 7 [How To]

By on September 7, 2009 (35 Comments)

243 Change & Limit System Restore In Windows 7 [How To]

System restore can quickly swallow up a large portion of your hard drive.

System restore in Windows 7 is more customisable than before.  You can specify how much space is taken by system restore, and how it backs you up.

This guide will walk you through the custom options and show you how to change & limit system restore (yes i am fed up of writing system restore!)

Method 1

Step 1.

Click the Start Orb, right click Computer and select Properties.

16 Change & Limit System Restore In Windows 7 [How To]

Step 2.

In the left hand pane click on System Protection

07 09 2009 17 25 57 Change & Limit System Restore In Windows 7 [How To]

Step 3.

Under this tab you can start system restore, create a new restore point, and configure the protection settings on all of your drives.

Select the drive you want to change and click Configure.

42 Change & Limit System Restore In Windows 7 [How To]

Step 4.

Under Restore Settings we can specify how system restore backs us up.  I recommend leaving the Restore Settings as they are.

Under Disk Space Usage you can see how much space is already allocated for system restore and how much is actually being used.  Drag the slider to the amount you’re willing to give away (recommended: 5-8% of your hard drive) and hit Apply.

You can also delete all of the restore points, although not recommended.  Read the warning notice carefully.

52 Change & Limit System Restore In Windows 7 [How To]

61 Change & Limit System Restore In Windows 7 [How To]

Method 2.

For all of you geeks out there.  There is a command to resize the allowed space for system restore.

Open an elevated command prompt and type;

vssadmin resize shadowstorage /On=X: /For=X: /Maxsize=ZGB

Where X is the drive you want to change and Z is the number of Gigabytes.

It will reflect in the System Protection configuration window immediately.

Type vssadmin in the command prompt for more information.

7 Change & Limit System Restore In Windows 7 [How To]

Change & Limit System Restore In Windows 7 [How To]

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  • Change & Limit Sys

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  • ramoncito.balboa

    good and easy to follow space saver :D

  • ramoncito.balboa

    good and easy to follow space saver :D

  • ramoncito.balboa

    good and easy to follow space saver :D

  • Venkat

    Turning off system restore on drives other than root drive will free space ,but it is recommended to have never disable system restore for OS residing root drive ,system restore will be handy in troubleshooting windows problems.

  • Venkat

    Turning off system restore on drives other than root drive will free space ,but it is recommended to have never disable system restore for OS residing root drive ,system restore will be handy in troubleshooting windows problems.

  • Venkat

    Turning off system restore on drives other than root drive will free space ,but it is recommended to have never disable system restore for OS residing root drive ,system restore will be handy in troubleshooting windows problems.

  • Mel

    So just how much space does each restore point take up? Interesting that they now let you choose what percent of your hard drive to use..

  • Mel

    So just how much space does each restore point take up? Interesting that they now let you choose what percent of your hard drive to use..

  • Mel

    So just how much space does each restore point take up? Interesting that they now let you choose what percent of your hard drive to use..

  • subraya assoldekar

    Turning off system restore might save some space in the hard disk but it better to just keep it enabled in case of any Software or windows problems.You can even delete the system restore any time by using TuneUP Utilities Software which comes quiet handy.

  • subraya assoldekar

    Turning off system restore might save some space in the hard disk but it better to just keep it enabled in case of any Software or windows problems.You can even delete the system restore any time by using TuneUP Utilities Software which comes quiet handy.

  • subraya assoldekar

    Turning off system restore might save some space in the hard disk but it better to just keep it enabled in case of any Software or windows problems.You can even delete the system restore any time by using TuneUP Utilities Software which comes quiet handy.

  • rsvr85

    It depends on the size of your system. My system drive is 25GB and each system restore point is around 400MB……i believe that Vista has the same ‘percentage’ meter.

  • rsvr85

    It depends on the size of your system. My system drive is 25GB and each system restore point is around 400MB……i believe that Vista has the same ‘percentage’ meter.

  • rsvr85

    It depends on the size of your system. My system drive is 25GB and each system restore point is around 400MB……i believe that Vista has the same ‘percentage’ meter.

  • rsvr85

    I think you may have misunderstood the guide. It’s to limit the space system restore uses. No mention of turning it off.
    CCleaner also has the ability to delete restore points of your choice.

  • rsvr85

    I think you may have misunderstood the guide. It’s to limit the space system restore uses. No mention of turning it off.
    CCleaner also has the ability to delete restore points of your choice.

  • rsvr85

    I think you may have misunderstood the guide. It’s to limit the space system restore uses. No mention of turning it off.
    CCleaner also has the ability to delete restore points of your choice.

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  • pau fexas

    System restore can be a lifesaver, though it can also eat up your harddrive if left unchecked, making this a handy tool. But just curious, does anybody know a way to make a backup of a system restore point or something like that? I ask because sometimes you have a system restore point which works great and then install a program, which creates more than one system restore point (with the reboots and installing the other parts necessary to work), and then you find out that it gitches up your system but the system restore point you made at the beginning is gone because of all the new ones made during the instalation… *this has unfortunately happened to me several times(.

  • pau fexas

    System restore can be a lifesaver, though it can also eat up your harddrive if left unchecked, making this a handy tool. But just curious, does anybody know a way to make a backup of a system restore point or something like that? I ask because sometimes you have a system restore point which works great and then install a program, which creates more than one system restore point (with the reboots and installing the other parts necessary to work), and then you find out that it gitches up your system but the system restore point you made at the beginning is gone because of all the new ones made during the instalation… *this has unfortunately happened to me several times(.

  • pau fexas

    System restore can be a lifesaver, though it can also eat up your harddrive if left unchecked, making this a handy tool. But just curious, does anybody know a way to make a backup of a system restore point or something like that? I ask because sometimes you have a system restore point which works great and then install a program, which creates more than one system restore point (with the reboots and installing the other parts necessary to work), and then you find out that it gitches up your system but the system restore point you made at the beginning is gone because of all the new ones made during the instalation… *this has unfortunately happened to me several times(.

  • Mrsverlaine

    Thank you, saving space already !

  • Uvais

    Thanks Stu but i am some Confused can i save my Windows 7′s Restore point(Which i created after my fresh install OS) For ever??

    • Stu

      I’m sure its possible, though i don’t see why you would want to – I wouldn’t recommend it. The system would probably become unstable too.
      migwiz.exe is probably a better tool to use for a “snap-shot”.

      • http://richr.org/ Rich

        Or use something like Macrium Reflect to take a snap shot of your system on a clean image so you can restore or build from this image when needed. Last time I checked, Reflect is free for both image creation and restoring/deployment.

    • Stu

      I’m sure its possible, though i don’t see why you would want to – I wouldn’t recommend it. The system would probably become unstable too.
      migwiz.exe is probably a better tool to use for a “snap-shot”.

  • Anonymous

    I`m glad I logged on to this site, I learned somethings, I was about to change my restore settings so it would show daily restore points on the calender, If I would have changed that it would have ate up a lot of space on my drive;; is this true???? thanks for any help; the Flat


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