Computers are fun right? Life probably won’t be the same without all those amazing things you can do with your PC. Browsing your favorite site, playing those ubiquitous empire building games, checking your email, listening to your favorite tunes, typing out that long midterm paper, these are all activities that you probably do everyday and take for granted. But imagine for a second that your computer just can’t carry out these functions the way you would normally expect it to. Perhaps you can’t hear any sound at all, or your screen displays content at a much lower resolution much rather like those old arcade games, or maybe some applications just won’t run at all. After trying several troubleshooting options, you still can’t resolve the problem and find yourself at a total loss.
The problem could stem from the installation of a new program or driver that alters your system or maybe you made some changes on your system and can’t really trace back what exactly you did. Restoring your system to an earlier point in time may be your best option facing such circumstances. Your computer has a feature called “System Protection” that saves your current settings periodically, or after such events as installing a new program. It also saves earlier versions of files that you have modified. These settings are stored in restore points which can be retrieved at anytime. It is also possible to create these restore points manually. The fact that restore process maintains your current user created files such as your Word or Excel files is probably one of the best reasons why you shouldn’t hesitate to use it. However this also means that it cannot retrieve your deleted or damaged files, it only retrieves the likes of system files, programs and registry settings or even user created executable files like the ones your nerdy buddy saved on your hard drive while practicing C++.
How to Perform System Restore
To restore your system in Windows 7, go click on the start menu, and select “Control Panel” in the pull up menu. The control panel for Windows 7 is shown below in the screenshot. Click on “Backup and Restore” icon, shown by the blue arrow.
On the backup and restore window, click on the “Recover system settings on your computer” link and in the ensuing window, click on the “Open System Restore” button. You will be presented with a list of the most recent restore points on your system as shown below.
Select whichever one you think would restore your computer to a point in time when it worked correctly. Follow the prompts to finish restoring your system. You may be prompted to restart your computer to apply the new settings. And there you have it, back to business as usual. Now you can erase those worry lines on your face and smile again. And be wary about downloading stuff from un trusted websites. If you haven’t installed antiviral software yet, you should seriously consider going down that route. Chances are, it would turn out to be well worth the cost.
