System Restauration is one of the most crucial but underrated features of the Windows operating system. A restore point can help the computer to return to a working state in no time and save a lot of time spent in troubleshooting. System restore points capture the resident program, their settings and the Windows registry as an image and save a few items needed to rebuild the system drive to the point if you choose to go back. While Windows frequently creates system restore points if you want, you can have your Windows PC create them at scheduled times.
Automatically create system restore points every day or every week
I wish Windows had a built-in feature or setting, where users could easily configure their PCs to create restore points, daily or weekly easily with one click – but there is no such setting available. You will need to use the Task Scheduler to do this. Now let's see how to schedule one at a particular time. It is a 3 step process:
- Activate the system restore function
- System restore point command
- Create a task in the Task Scheduler.
We also explained how to manually run the task to confirm its operation and a quick tutorial to create a shortcut to this task. It will allow you to quickly create a restore point.
1) Activate the system restore function
Although this should be enabled by default, but it is a good idea to check if the system restore has been disabled. You will also need to configure System restore for individual drive, including the disk usage option.
Windows allows create system restore once in 24 hours. If he makes another attempt, he will jump. So if you plan to create multiple restore points, sometimes manually, we need to remove this limitation.
Open the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionSystemRestore
Double click to edit SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency DWORD. Change the value to 0.
This will ensure that Windows never ignores the creation of a restore point.
2) System restore point control
The command we will use to create the restore point is
Checkpoint-Computer -Description "TWC-RestorePoint" -RestorePointType MODIFY_SETTINGS
You can change the name TWC-RestorePoint to something else.
MODIFY_SETTINGS is a type of restore point that includes the registry, local profiles, com + DB, WFP.dll, the IIS database, and file extensions.
I recommend that you run this command on PowerShell to make sure it works properly.
Here's a quick demo of the command we suggested. Note that he created a restore point with the description – TWC-RestorePoint.
Apart from that, you can also use the following arguments:
- APPLICATION_INSTALL
- APPLICATION_UNINSTALL
- DEVICE_DRIVER_INSTALL
- ANNULATION_OPÉRATION
You can also use the following argument with WMIC.EXE to create a restore point. We explained this in detail in our article on How to automatically create a restore point with Windows startup.
/Namespace:rootdefault Path SystemRestore Call CreateRestorePoint "Startup Restore Point", 100, 7
3) Create a task planner
Now you need to create and schedule a basic task and use the above mentioned command in the task scheduler with PowerShell
Type taskschd.msc in the Run prompt and press the Enter key to open the Task Scheduler. Click the Create Task link. Name it as Restore Point Creator, and check the box that says Run with highest privileges.
If there are multiple users on the computer, select the radio button which indicates Run whether the user is logged in or not.
Go to the Triggers tab and click the new button. Here we go schedule task execution once a day, or you can choose whatever you want. Select daily, set the start date and time.
Go to the Actions tab and click on the new button. Here we will add the command.
Type powershell.exe in the Program / script area. In the Argument box, type the following:
Checkpoint-Computer -Description "TWC-RestorePoint" -RestorePointType MODIFY_SETTINGS
Click on the OK button.
Then go to the Conditions tab if you set it up on a laptop. You can choose to ignore the creation of a restore point if it is running on battery or to stop if it runs on battery.
Finally, go to the Settings tab. Here you need to configure what happens if the task fails or if it fails because the computer was turned off. It can also take care of situations in case of task failure, etc.
If you have configured it to run even when the user is not logged in, you will be prompted to enter the password. If you are using a Microsoft account, I suggest that you create a local administrator account and use it for such settings when a password is required.
Manually run the task to check if it works
Select the task that we have created and in the right pane, click the Run button. It will instantly launch PowerShell and execute the command.
Create a shortcut for the system restore task to run it at any time
The program, schtasks.exe, is responsible for running tasks on time. We can use the following argument to create a desktop shortcut to run it on demand. In our case, it will look like this:
C:WindowsSystem32schtasks.exe /run /tn "Restore Point Creator"
- Right click on the desktop
- Select New> Shortcut
- In the location, paste the command shown above
- Give it a name and click OK.
Now the next time you change something that may be using a problem, create a restore using this shortcut.
In this, not only have we learned to plan system restore points in Windows 10, but also to create them at any time using the shortcut. Remember that every time you create a restore point, it takes up some of the storage space. Although Windows will automatically delete old restore points when the allocated disk space limit is reached, you can also manually delete old restore points.