I plan to use the system restore feature on my Dell Dimension 4600 computer (operating system is windows XP). However, I have removed the Spy Sweeper software from the computer and I want to restore to a point when Spy Sweeper was on the computer. Will system restore work if I restore to a point when spy sweeper was on the computer even though it is not installed on the computer now, or will it negatively effect my computer? Should I reinstall spy sweeper before I use system restore to restore to a point when spy sweeper was on the computer?
System Restore, although a great and useful tool, will not always restore "everything" that was deleted or uninstalled. e.g. if you uninstall a program and then do a System Restore back to a date/time when it was installed many times it will restore the program files but because some registry or dll link is still missing the program will not run or run correctly. Your best option when you uninstall a program is to do the "orderly" install using the program's installation procedure.
Data files are another issue. System; restore normally does not backup or restore "data" files. e.g. if you have a program that generates a data file and it's placed in the "My Documents" folder, when you uninstall the program the data file in the My Documents folder may not be removed.
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I did not want to use system restore to reinstall spy sweeper, but to solve another problem, which is a problem with playing DVDs on my computer. I am hoping that using system restore will allow me to play DVDs on my computer again. I only asked about spy sweeper because it is not on my computer now but it was on my computer at the date/time that I want to restore to and I want to know if I should reinstall spy sweeper or not before I use system restore.
Don't use System Restore. It will mess up your computer badly. Everyone thinks that System Restore is the answer to fixing problems but it really makes things worse.
fireberd
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Posted January 8th, 2006 10:00
System Restore, although a great and useful tool, will not always restore "everything" that was deleted or uninstalled. e.g. if you uninstall a program and then do a System Restore back to a date/time when it was installed many times it will restore the program files but because some registry or dll link is still missing the program will not run or run correctly. Your best option when you uninstall a program is to do the "orderly" install using the program's installation procedure.
Data files are another issue. System; restore normally does not backup or restore "data" files. e.g. if you have a program that generates a data file and it's placed in the "My Documents" folder, when you uninstall the program the data file in the My Documents folder may not be removed.