The Regedit method in the preceding section works great if you need to back up the Registry to some other location than your local hard disk. Doing so helps you reconstruct your system if the entire hard disk goes bad.

However, you're much more likely to have Registry problems caused by something other than a complete hard disk failure. For example, a beginner changing entries in the Registry Editor can cause problems, and a poorly written application can make bad changes to the Registry when it installs. In cases like that, it's not critical that the backup of the Registry be stored in some remote location; it can be right there on your hard disk (and in fact is more convenient that way).

The System Restore utility in Windows XP is a fast, easy way to create a Registry backup, called a snapshot, or restore point, and storing it on your local hard disk. You can easily restore a saved snapshot to fix any Registry problems. Windows automatically saves a new snapshot every day, and keeps them for about two weeks, so you can take your system's settings back to an earlier time whenever something happens to cause problems. You can also create your own snapshots (for example, right before you install some questionable software).

Creating a Restore Point

To create a System Restore snapshot, follow these steps

1. Select Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore.
2. In the Welcome box that appears, click Create a restore point, and then click Next.
3. Type a description for the restore point, as shown in Figure 1-3. This can be anything that will help jog your memory. For example, if you're creating a restore point as a precaution before you install a certain new program, you might call it Before Install. Click Create.

Figure 1-3: Create a restore point in System Restore.

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4. Click Close to close the utility.

Restoring a Previous Windows State

If your system is starting to have problems, such as error messages, inability to start normally, or lockups, and you just installed some new program or changed a system setting, you're probably wishing you had never done it! System Restore can help you go back in time, restoring the Registry to the condition it was in before the unfortunate incident.

As mentioned earlier, System Restore saves a system checkpoint every day automatically, so even if you haven't manually created a configuration snapshot (see the previous section), you should still be able to back up the previous day's configuration, at a minimum.

To restore from System Restore, follow these steps:

1. Close all open programs, and then select Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore.
2. Leave Restore my computer to an earlier time selected, and then click Next.
3. On the calendar that appears, click the date of the restore point you want to use. Dates containing restore points appear in boldface. Some dates have more than one restore point, as shown in Figure 1-4.

Figure 1-4: Multiple restore points.

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4. On the list to the right of the calendar, click the restore point you want, and then click Next.
5. A confirmation appears. Click Next.
6. Your computer restarts itself. When Windows comes back up, a confirmation box appears. Click OK to close it.

Your system is now restored to the chosen configuration. If that solved your problem, great. If it introduced even more problems, you can always reverse the System Restore process. To do so, restart System Restore, and then select Undo my last restoration.