How to programmatically (or from Command Prompt or from Windows PowerShell) create a restore point when a Windows 7 system drive is set to "Only restore previous versions of files"? The Checkpoint-Computer cmdlet returns an error and so does the WMI call CreateRestorePoint (they're all the same after all). The user interface (SystemPropertiesProtection.exe --> Create...), however, does it! So there must be a way, hmm... ? Kind regards, Gregor

Hi, As my understanding, when you configure "Only restore previous versions of files on system drive, you have stopped system protection, so you cannot undo unwanted system changes. System Protection is the feature that creates restore points, you could try to check if you could use that system restore point which is created without system protection. In my situation, I cannot select the system drive to be restored, in other word, it is useless. As a suggestion, we recommend that you keep System Protection turned on for all hard disks that contain important files so that you can use System Restore if you need to. Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.Alex Zhao TechNet Community Support

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Well, your post was not really helpful. What I expected from Windows 7 is to have a mechanism similar to Windows Server Previous Versions of Files which is extremely space efficient. Of cause I've already tested the setting Restore system settings and previous versions of files thoroughly, but every restore point consumes gigabytes. As I said, the user interface successfully creates a restore point with Only restore previous versions of files. Is there an API call or a .NET class for this? Can Microsoft create and publish a small .EXE that mimics the UI Create? Please concentrate only on this. Thanks! Gregor

Hi, There may be not a tool to achieve this goal, and this would be by design. As we can see, if we run Disable-ComputerRestore command by using PowerShell, we get a result of Only restore previous versions of files in the UI interface. Meanwhile, as I said, the user interface method only creates system restore points for drives that have system protection turned on. If you disable this feature, the point which you create would be useless for system drive. By the way, there are also going to be changes to this feature in Windows 8. Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support If you are TechNet Subscription user and have any feedback on our support quality, please send your feedback here.Alex Zhao TechNet Community Support