System Restore in Windows Vista has changed drastically, however it can still use a lot of disk space (I've personally seen it use up to 30 GB in 4 days) - if you are a power user who does rely on System Restore or you need to free up some hard disk space, then you may wish to clear out your System Restore points.
In order to delete all but the most recent restore point:
- Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup.
- In the dialog that appears choose "Files from all users on this computer".
- If User Account Control prompts you to confirm the action, click on "Continue".
- If asked which drive you want to scan, choose the drive in which Windows Vista is installed on, and then click OK.
- Disk Cleanup will scan your hard drive and then display a list of options.
- In the Disk Cleanup window, click on the "More Options" tab.
- Under "System Restore", click on the "Clean up..." button.
- When asked "Are you sure you want to delete all but the most recent restore point?", click on "Delete".
- Close the Disk Cleanup window.
After you have performed these steps, check your disk usage in the Computer window. I think you'll be a bit surprised.
If you'd like to disable System Restore completely for whatever reason (don't use it or it takes up too much disk space constantly), then you can turn it off in Advanced System Settings.
Note: I don't recommend doing this unless you have to, as the version of System Restore in Windows Vista is greatly improved over it's predecessor in Windows XP.
To disable System Restore completely:
- Click on Start, right click on Computer, and finally click on "Properties".
- In the left hand pane click on "Advanced system settings".
- If User Account Control prompts you to confirm the action, click on "Continue".
- In the "System Properties" window that appears, click on the "System Protection" tab.
- Under "Available Disks", uncheck any drives that are checked.
- When asked "Are you sure you want to turn System Restore off?", click on "Turn System Restore Off".
- Click on the OK button to close the "System Properties" window.
- Close the "System" window.
I hope this information proves to be useful to all of you! I was wondering why I was using so much more hard disk space than I did when using Windows XP with all the updates applied. After clearing out my System Restore points, I freed up a whopping 30 GB! Wow.
I should mention that System Restore is set to use a percentage of your hard drive, so if you have a small drive, it's probably not going to use 30GB.