Supposedly System Restore is on by default; however, in my case this does not appear to be a true. I deployed over 100 windows 7 images (via MDT) to our environment. The image was created with System Restore turned on, however, I was informed that all 100 PC’s show it turned off. Rather than rebuild a new image I would like to mount the WIM and add the correct registry settings. Also, I need to address the 100 assets that need to be configured with the System Restore settings turned on. I have looked at the GPO in AD and it shows that “Turn off Configuration & Turn off System Restore” are both set to “Not Configured”. I already tried several registry setting found online but none have worked. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT Create a new key: type SystemRestore. Create a new DWORD value: type DisableConfig, under Value data, type 0 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Windows NT Click once on the "SystemRestore" folder in the left pane. Double-click the "DisableSR" key in the right pane. Type "1" into the value data None listed above work. I can only disable this function and stop users from accessing this feature but I cannot automate turning this feature on. A working reg file can be pushed via SCCM. Is there anyone out there with some insight to this challenge?

Hi, Base on my research and test, when you turn on system protection, system restore will turn on. And if you turn on system protection, a registry key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients will be created, value name is {09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513}. But difference PC has difference value date of that key, that’s hard to deploy registry key to turn on system protection. I also found some articles to turn on system restore via change registry, the same result which you have tested already, that keys seem work on Windows XP, but not affect with Windows 7. I suggest to configure the sample script below as a computer startup script to enable System Restore in GPO. You can refer: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa378858(v=VS.85).aspx Hope that helps. Regards, Leo HuangPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Base on my research and test, when you turn on system protection, system restore will turn on. And if you turn on system protection, a registry key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients will be created, value name is {09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513}. But difference PC has difference value date of that key, that’s hard to deploy registry key to turn on system protection. Regards, Leo Huang Hi Leo, This can be achieved very easily. It took me considerable time and though I figured it out, I am not able understand the fundamentals. Here's what you can do. Browse to : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients and you will find the key {09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513} and this key is same on all systems (I have checked on VISTA & 7). Now simply change the value of this key (which is otherwise very long and different on every system) to 1 (just numeric 1). That is all. To confirm, just change the value to 1 and then export the clients key to a .reg file. On other WIN7/VISTA system, delete the clients key and you will see that system restore in disabled immediately. Now merge the. reg file (which you created on 1st system) and the system restore would be activated. As of now, I could not spare time and in case you are able to gather something, please let me know. Thanks Kapil Oberoi (Sr. Product Specialist) PS: Turn off system restore on several WIN7/VISTA systems and use this in elevated prompt: reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients" /v " {09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513}" /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d 1 On all systems the SR will turn on !!!

Base on my research and test, when you turn on system protection, system restore will turn on. And if you turn on system protection, a registry key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients will be created, value name is {09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513}. But difference PC has difference value date of that key, that’s hard to deploy registry key to turn on system protection. Regards, Leo Huang Hi Leo, This can be achieved very easily. It took me considerable time and though I figured it out, I am not able understand the fundamentals. Here's what you can do. Browse to : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients and you will find the key {09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513} and this key is same on all systems (I have checked on VISTA & 7). Now simply change the value of this key (which is otherwise very long and different on every system) to 1 (just numeric 1). That is all. To confirm, just change the value to 1 and then export the clients key to a .reg file. On other WIN7/VISTA system, delete the clients key and you will see that system restore in disabled immediately. Now merge the. reg file (which you created on 1st system) and the system restore would be activated. As of now, I could not spare time and in case you are able to gather something, please let me know. Thanks Kapil Oberoi (Sr. Product Specialist)

Awesome, that worked on two of my Windows 7 boxes. I took that registry key and placed it in our GPO. I'll do a few more test before we put this in production. Thanks again. Just wondering since all systems have SR turned off, can I also create a restore point through the registry?

Hi, I'll be doing some further tweaking tomorrow. At this moment I'm awaiting the results from your side (i.e. the result in production environment). Best Regards

Just downloaded a script that does exactly what I need. When an end-user logs on, the GPO turns on the SR and then I push a script via SCCM and that creates a Restore Point. I am a happy man again. I edited the script to my liking and this is now issue is closed. The script can be located at http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/createsrp.vbs http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/create-system-restore-point-quickly-using-script-in-windows-7-vista-and-xp/

Not getting the results I thought I would be getting. As mentioned I created a GPO that creates this registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients value {09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513} Data = 1. The GPO is set only to apply this function once. On some systems the Data stay at 1 while some systems (not many) convert to \\?\volume{1234567890567890-} blah blah. The ones that convert work when we do the system restore. Any thoughts? Just learned that I need to delete all system restore points for this to work. I am currently searching the internet for a script or command lines that delete all restore points. When I can remove all RP I can turn on SR and set the 1st RP.

Not getting the results I thought I would be getting. As mentioned I created a GPO that creates this registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients value {09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513} Data = 1. The GPO is set only to apply this function once. On some systems the Data stay at 1 while some systems (not many) convert to \\?\volume{1234567890567890-} blah blah. The ones that convert work when we do the system restore. Any thoughts?

Not getting the results I thought I would be getting. As mentioned I created a GPO that creates this registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SPP\Clients value {09F7EDC5-294E-4180-AF6A-FB0E6A0E9513} Data = 1. The GPO is set only to apply this function once. On some systems the Data stay at 1 while some systems (not many) convert to \\?\volume{1234567890567890-} blah blah. The ones that convert work when we do the system restore. Any thoughts? Just learned that I need to delete all system restore points for this to work. I am currently searching the internet for a script or command lines that delete all restore points. When I can remove all RP I can turn on SR and set the 1st RP. Answer: (vssadmin delete shadows /for=c: /all /quiet) this command deletes all Restore Points.