Last Updated on February 25, 2024 by Mathew Diekhake

 

Restore points are created to allow users a choice of previous system states. Each restore point contains the necessary information needed to restore the system to the chosen state. Restore points are created before key changes are made to the system.

System Restore has an automatic restore point space-management feature that purges the oldest restore points to make room for new ones, while still enabling the user to recover from any recent destructive changes.

In Windows 7 on computers with hard drives over 64 GB, System Restore can take up to 5 percent of the disk or a maximum of 10 GB of the disk space, whichever is less. On computers with hard drives of 64 GB or less, System Restore can take at most 3 percent of the disk space.

In Windows Vista, System Restore can take up to 15 percent of the size of the volume or a maximum of 30 percent of the free disk space, whichever is less.

System Restore in Windows XP takes a maximum of 12 percent of the disk space in systems with hard drives over 4 gigabytes (GB), and a maximum of 400 megabytes (MB) for hard drives under 4 GB. To change the maximum storage limit in Windows XP, use the System application in the Control Panel.

The following tutorial demonstrates how to change the frequency of the System Restore point creation when you’re using a version of the Windows 10 operating system. Read more: CreateRestorePoint method of the SystemRestore

How to Change System Restore Point Creation Frequency in Windows 10

Here is how you can change the System Restore point creation frequency in Windows 10:

1. Type Regedit into Search, or open Run (Win+R) and then type Regedit and click OK.

2. In the console tree of the snap-in, navigate through to the following keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SystemRestore

3. In the right side pane of System Restore, click on the SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency DWORD. (click to enlarge screenshot below)

Note: If you have not yet created it already, then you’ll need to create it. To do that, right-click the empty area in the right side pane of System Restore key, click New and DWORD (32-bit) Value from the menu. Name the new DWORD SystemRestorePointCreationFrequency.

4. Type a number that represents how many minutes you want to be set as the System Restore point creation frequency. The default is 1440 minutes which equals 24 hours. Settings the number to 0 will result in System Restore never skipping the creation of restore points.

You can now close the Registry Editor app and continue using your computer if you like.

That’s all.