For some reason I am unable to restore my computer to an earlier date.  I have tried perhaps 7 or 8 times.  The process appears to execute normally, as in other restores I have done in the past.  But after restarting and reopening Windows and my desktop, a System Restore window appears with the following message:  “Restoration Incomplete.  Your computer cannot be restored to: (it indicates the date and event I attempted to restore to).  No changes have been made to your computer.  To choose another restore point, restart System Restore.” 

I have tried numerous dates going back to August 5, which happened to be a few days after I did a complete system reinstall  (system plus all applications).  All of the restore points that exist on dates after completion of the reinstall are the daily System Checkpoints.  Occasionally, but not always, an error window appeared just before the computer shut down while it was doing the restore.  This message appeared only for a second, so at first I wasn’t able to read it.  I finally captured it with my digital camera.  Here is what it said:  “point32.exe – DLL Initialization Failed.  The application failed to initialize because the window station is shutting down.”

Note that I have done perhaps 10 system reinstalls on various of my Dell PCs over the past 5 years, so I am rather experienced at doing successful reinstalls.  However, it is possible that something happened at the most recent reinstall on this computer, although my notes I took during the reinstall don’t indicate anything unusual.

I posted this question on a the System forum, and I received two suggestions.  The first suggestion was to turn off Restore, reboot, and then turn Restore back on.  I followed this advice, and then created a manual restore point.  A half hour later I tried to restore to that manual restore point, but the same problem occurred again -- restore did not work.  The second suggestion was to use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Quick Scan.  I did this, but no malicious items were detected.  The second suggestion also said I should try this forum, so here I am.

Here is some information on my computer:

Dell Dimension 8200

Windows XP, SP3

Pentium 4 CPU, 2.26 GHz

1064 MB RDRAM  

80 GB master hard drive, Western Digital WD 800, WD Caviar drive, 7200 rpm, Ultra ATA

Seagate 500 GB slave internal hard drive, 7200 rpm, PATA/100 interface

Seagate Free Agent Pro 500 GB USB external hard drive

BenQ DW 1640 DVD/CD read/write drive

NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 420 video card

StarTech combo USB/1394 PCI card

Following the advice of bugbatter, I downloaded HiJackThis and ran a scan.  Here is what resulted from the scan:

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2
Scan saved at 11:02:03 AM, on 9/26/2009
Platform: Windows XP SP3 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP3 (6.00.2900.5512)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\bin\AppleMobileDeviceService.exe
C:\Program Files\Bonjour\mDNSResponder.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.7.2.11\ccSvcHst.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.7.2.11\ccSvcHst.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\Program Files\Canon\MyPrinter\BJMyPrt.exe
C:\Program Files\ScanSoft\OmniPageSE4\OpwareSE4.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft IntelliPoint\point32.exe
C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunesHelper.exe
C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\SecCopy\SecCopy.exe
C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbarNotifier\GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe
C:\Program Files\iPod\bin\iPodService.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\taskmgr.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\devldr32.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\OUTLOOK.EXE
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\WINWORD.EXE
C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis\HijackThis.exe

R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://my.earthlink.net/channel/START
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Window Title = Road Runner High Speed Online
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings,ProxyOverride = *.local
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHelperStub - {18DF081C-E8AD-4283-A596-FA578C2EBDC3} - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelperShim.dll
O2 - BHO: Symantec NCO BHO - {602ADB0E-4AFF-4217-8AA1-95DAC4DFA408} - C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.7.2.11\coIEPlg.dll
O2 - BHO: Symantec Intrusion Prevention - {6D53EC84-6AAE-4787-AEEE-F4628F01010C} - C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.7.2.11\IPSBHO.DLL
O2 - BHO: Google Toolbar Helper - {AA58ED58-01DD-4d91-8333-CF10577473F7} - C:\Program Files\Google\Google Toolbar\GoogleToolbar_32.dll
O2 - BHO: Google Toolbar Notifier BHO - {AF69DE43-7D58-4638-B6FA-CE66B5AD205D} - C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbarNotifier\5.3.4501.1418\swg.dll
O2 - BHO: Google Dictionary Compression sdch - {C84D72FE-E17D-4195-BB24-76C02E2E7C4E} - C:\Program Files\Google\Google Toolbar\Component\fastsearch_B7C5AC242193BB3E.dll
O3 - Toolbar: Norton Toolbar - {7FEBEFE3-6B19-4349-98D2-FFB09D4B49CA} - C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.7.2.11\coIEPlg.dll
O3 - Toolbar: Google Toolbar - {2318C2B1-4965-11d4-9B18-009027A5CD4F} - C:\Program Files\Google\Google Toolbar\GoogleToolbar_32.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [CanonSolutionMenu] C:\Program Files\Canon\SolutionMenu\CNSLMAIN.exe /logon
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [CanonMyPrinter] C:\Program Files\Canon\MyPrinter\BJMyPrt.exe /logon
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SSBkgdUpdate] "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Scansoft Shared\SSBkgdUpdate\SSBkgdupdate.exe" -Embedding -boot
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [OpwareSE4] "C:\Program Files\ScanSoft\OmniPageSE4\OpwareSE4.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [IntelliPoint] "C:\Program Files\Microsoft IntelliPoint\point32.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NeroFilterCheck] C:\WINDOWS\system32\NeroCheck.exe
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Adobe Reader Speed Launcher] "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\Reader_sl.exe"
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [QuickTime Task] "C:\Program Files\QuickTime\qttask.exe" -atboottime
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [iTunesHelper] "C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunesHelper.exe"
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [MSMSGS] "C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe" /background
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [Second Copy 2000] "C:\Program Files\SecCopy\SecCopy.exe"
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [swg] "C:\Program Files\Google\GoogleToolbarNotifier\GoogleToolbarNotifier.exe"
O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE/3000
O9 - Extra button: Research - {92780B25-18CC-41C8-B9BE-3C9C571A8263} - C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\OFFICE11\REFIEBAR.DLL
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {e2e2dd38-d088-4134-82b7-f2ba38496583} - C:\WINDOWS\Network Diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: @xpsp3res.dll,-20001 - {e2e2dd38-d088-4134-82b7-f2ba38496583} - C:\WINDOWS\Network Diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe
O9 - Extra button: Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Windows Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O16 - DPF: {6414512B-B978-451D-A0D8-FCFDF33E833C} (WUWebControl Class) - http://update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/V5Controls/en/x86/client/wuweb_site.cab?1249200515078
O16 - DPF: {6E32070A-766D-4EE6-879C-DC1FA91D2FC3} (MUWebControl Class) - http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/V5Controls/en/x86/client/muweb_site.cab?1249204197671
O16 - DPF: {E2883E8F-472F-4FB0-9522-AC9BF37916A7} - http://platformdl.adobe.com/NOS/getPlusPlus/1.6/gp.cab
O16 - DPF: {E5F5D008-DD2C-4D32-977D-1A0ADF03058B} (JuniperSetupControlXP Class) - https://rsvpn.raytheon.com/dana-cached/setup/JuniperSetupSP1.cab
O18 - Protocol: symres - {AA1061FE-6C41-421F-9344-69640C9732AB} - C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.7.2.11\coIEPlg.dll
O23 - Service: Apple Mobile Device - Apple Inc. - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\bin\AppleMobileDeviceService.exe
O23 - Service: Bonjour Service - Apple Inc. - C:\Program Files\Bonjour\mDNSResponder.exe
O23 - Service: Google Software Updater (gusvc) - Google - C:\Program Files\Google\Common\Google Updater\GoogleUpdaterService.exe
O23 - Service: iPod Service - Apple Inc. - C:\Program Files\iPod\bin\iPodService.exe
O23 - Service: Norton Internet Security - Symantec Corporation - C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\16.7.2.11\ccSvcHst.exe

Any help is greatly appreciated.  I hope I can fix this problem, because I don't want to go on without a Restore capability, and the only other solution I know is to reinstall the entire system again.

Thanks

laserguy