Number 216 - May 2001

RESTORE-ing My Sanity
by Bob Thomson
When I bought my Pentium III machine in early 1999 it had Windows 98 on it. I have since upgraded to Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) and then to Windows 98 Me (Millenium Edition).     The other day I experienced a couple of events that puzzled me. First, on re-booting my machine I noticed that the Norton AntiVirus icon had a yellow exclamation point on it, indicating that it did not load properly. I am connected to cable system and my machine is ON all the time. To protect it I have both a software firewall (BlackICE Defender) and antivirus software (Norton NAV7) running all the time. So I reloaded Norton NAV7 and updated the virus signature files. Norton was now running properly, but I wondered why I had had to reload it.     The second thing I wanted to do was to scan an article for possible inclusion in the newsletter, but my scanner software would not load. After repeated attempts, I clicked on Start/Shut Down/Restart/OK. After a couple of minutes of making like it was restarting, the system "hung"--doing nothing. I pressed the Reset button and the same sequence happened. Using the three finger salute (i.e. The Ctrl-Alt-Del keys all pressed at the same time) displayed the window showing what was running and it said that Explorer was not responding. Anyway, the machine just wouldn't start. I Reset again but this time pressed the F8 key so I could bring it up in Safe Mode.	While "booting" in Safe mode it displayed a screen stating that it would attempt to Restore my system to a previous configuration. On the same screen was a calendar display showing at least one previous date displayed in larger sized numerals. Placing the cursor over that date it changed to a "hand" indicating that it was a "live" link to Restore the system to that previous day's configuration. A statement said that any data or e-mail that had been saved since the earlier date would be unaffected, but executable programs loaded since then may have to be reinstalled.     Proceeding, the Restore process took a few minutes and then restarted the machine. Everything was back to more or less normal. Any changes were very minor because I had made very few changes since the earlier date.     Whew! That was scary -- but the result was reassuring. I hope all recoveries are that easy!     Why scary? Only in the sense that I might have to reload everything that I use on the computer. This includes programs which have been loaded on the machine over the past couple of years as well as the files they generated. That would be a lot of work that I'd rather not have to do!
Number 216 - May 2001