Windows Recovery Points

Introduction

The user can create a new restore point manually, roll back to an existing point, or change the system recovery configuration.

Moreover, the recovery itself can be reversible. Old restore points are reset in order to, to maintain the usage of the disk volume at a precisely defined size.

For many users, this can provide recovery points covering the past few weeks. Users who care about performance or the amount of disk used can also choose to turn off completely system recovery. For files stored on disks, but which the recovery service has not tracked, backups will not be created and such files will never be restored.

System Restore creates backups of system files of certain extensions (.exe, .dll, etc.) and saves them for further recovery and use. The registry and most drivers are also backed up.

Cheat Sheet

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted Enable-ComputerRestore -Drive "C:\" Checkpoint-Computer -Description "First" Get-ComputerRestorePoint Restore-Computer -RestorePoint 1

Create Windows recovery point

Search for Create a restore point

If Protection is off select virtual drive and click Configure…

Select Turn on system protection

OK

Create…

Enter recovery point name and click Create

Wait

Close

Checkpoint-Computer: Create recovery point with PowerShell

As a PowerShell admin exec

Enable-ComputerRestore -Drive "C:\"
Checkpoint-Computer -Description "www.aredel.com"

Get-ComputerRestorePoint

In PowerShell as an Administrator exec

Get-ComputerRestorePoint

CreationTime Description SequenceNumber EventType RestorePointType ------------ ----------- -------------- --------- ---------------- 15/11/2026 00:01:15 AM First 1 BEGIN_SYSTEM_C... APPLICATION_INSTALL 15/11/2026 00:05:17 AM Second 2 BEGIN_SYSTEM_C... APPLICATION_INSTALL 15/11/2026 03:16:23 PM www.devhops.ru 3 BEGIN_SYSTEM_C... APPLICATION_INSTALL

Recovery

With PowerShell

Restore-Computer -RestorePoint 6

In GUI:

Search for Recovery

Open System Restore

If recommended option doesn't fit select Choose a different restore point

Next >

Chose correct point and click Next >

Finish

Yes

Wait

Close

Recover from point

SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency

If you try to create a restore point before the expiration of 24 hours after creating the previous one, an error will appear

WARNING: A new system restore point cannot be created because one has already been created within the past 1440 minutes. The frequency of restore point creation can be changed by creating the DWORD value 'SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency' under the registry key 'HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore'. The value of this registry key indicates the necessary time interval (in minutes) between two restore point creation. The default value is 1440 minutes (24 hours).

You can change the available interval for creating points in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE section of the Windows registry

Open the registry editor regedit

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore

Right-click on SystemRestore

New > Key

DWORD (32-bit) Value

Enter the variable name SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency and the value

Check the result

It is possible to set SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency with PowerShell

I created two variables so that the lines fit on one screen, you can do everything in one line without additional variables.

$cf_path = 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore' $name = 'SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency' New-ItemProperty -Path $cf_path -Name $name -Value 7 -PropertyType DWord

SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency : 7 PSPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore PSParentPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion PSChildName : SystemRestore PSDrive : HKLM PSProvider : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry

If you check the registry now, you can see that the value is seven.

Article author: Andrei Olegovich