Daddy Bob

DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A

 

January 29, 2006

 

Q. I was advised to do a System Restore to fix a computer problem. But, when I tried to do it, I had no System Restore points available. Why not?

A. There are two possible reasons. You could not have enough room on your hard drive to create a Restore Point, but more likely, your System Restore feature is disabled.

System Restore is a Windows utility that allows a user to restore their computer's condition to a previous date, called a restore point, undoing most changes that have been made since that time. It was introduced with Windows ME, and has carried over into XP. Whether it will be included in the next version of Windows, called Vista remains to be seen.

Any personal data entered since the restore point's date, things like new files, new e-mail messages, and changes to documents, will not be effected.  However, any system changes made after the restore point was created will be undone after the restore has completed.

If your System Restore system is enabled, it periodically creates automatic restore points, called "system checkpoints" that protect data from unexpected problems. You can also create a restore point manually. Many applications will create a restore point before they start their installation process. This allows the system to be restored to the condition it was in before the application was installed.

To see if your System Restore system is enabled, or to enable or disable it, Right click on My Computer, and select Properties. Then click the System Restore tab. There you can enable or disable it, and set up how it works.

To perform a System Restore, or to create a manual restore point, click Start, select Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, and then System Restore. If you choose to restore to a previous date, the dates that a restore point are available will be in bold type.

Q. When I right click on the "My Computer" icon on my computer, the menu I get is the same as any other shortcut. On my friends computer it is a different menu. Why are they different.

A. On your desktop, right click on your "My Computer" icon. If there is not a MY Computer icon on your desktop, right click on the one in your Start menu. You should see a menu displayed similar to the one below left.

  

(Of course, yours will not have my logo in it unless I happened to have worked on your computer). If you see one similar to the one above right, the Icon on your desktop is just a shortcut, and was created incorrectly.

In all versions from Windows 95 up until Windows XP, a "My Computer" icon was placed on the desktop by default when the operating system was installed. When XP is installed, by default there is only one icon on the desktop, that being the recycle bin. Any other icon on your desktop when you got your computer was put there by the computer manufacturer, or one of the programs they installed.

To correctly place the "My Computer" icon on your desktop, RIGHT click on a blank spot on your desktop, select Properties, then the Desktop tab, then the Customize Desktop button. From here, you can choose to install the "My Computer", "My Documents", or "My Network Places" icons on your desktop. You can also change their icons and the ones for the recycle bin full and empty.

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