ITsVISTA
Information that makes life easier when it comes to installing, managing, and using Windows Vista.
Start About FAQ Blogroll Shop

ITsVISTA Tip 41: Change the Frequency of Your Automatic System Restore Point

ITsVISTA TipIn a previous tip I showed you how to restore a file, which relies on System Restore. Vista automatically creates a restore point once a day, and also when updates and some software and drivers are installed. If you want to change the once a day to be more or less frequent, it is possible, but will require modifying your registry. I must always mention that incorrectly modifying your registry can cause problems, and could even prevent your machine from functioning all together, so BE CAREFUL!

  1. Open the Start menu and type regedit in the search box.
    Type regedit
  2. Choose Regedit from the program list that is found. You’ll need to approve UAC if it is enabled.
    Regedit
  3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore
    SystemRestore
  4. Doube-click RPGlobalInterval in the right pane.
    RPGlobalInterval
  5. Change the Base from Hexidecimal to Decimal. This will make entering a value much easier (unless you know hexidecimal, then have at!)
    HexidecimalDecimal
  6. The default value is 86400, which is the number of seconds in 24 hours. Change this value to the number of second you would like between automatic restore points. I’ll change mine to 12 hours (43200).
    43200 seconds
  7. Click OK, close Regedit, you’re done!

Get notified of new posts for FREE via RSS or E-mail

Subscribe to ITsVISTA!

Related Posts

Comments

  • LR

    Jul 10, 2007 at 5:17 am

    Thanks for the tip! System restore was using my loud hard drive at around 80% usage randomly and was driving me insane!

  • Joe

    Jul 10, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    Wow, that’s pretty crazy. Glad the tip helped!

  • nxt241

    Oct 17, 2007 at 2:40 am

    it didnt work for me
    i put 1800 in decimal

  • jazzbo

    Jan 22, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    My system is not making system restore points automatically every day like it should. It does make them when I do it manually and automatically when I have a microsoft update. I checked the values in regedit. They are the same as your example except
    Last Index shows 0×0000004d (77) could that be my problem?? Automatic system restore points are turned on for my c drive.
    thanks

Leave a Comment