Tip of the day: Create an instant System Restore point

Today’s tip is shamelessly stolen from Jerry Honeycutt, author of the definitive Microsoft Windows XP Registry Guide from Microsoft Press:

You can script System Restore to make taking snapshots quicker and easier. Wouldn’t you like to have a script sitting on your desktop that you can run before making changes to the registry? Here’s how to create a script that will create a restore point when you double-click it:

Using Notepad, type the following listing and save it with the file extension .vbs and make sure that you enclose the file name in quotation marks so Notepad doesn’t add the .txt file extension to the name.

Set SRP = GetObject( "winmgmts:\.\root\default:Systemrestore" )
CSRP = SRP.CreateRestorePoint( "Hacked the registry", 0, 100 )

Double-click the script file any time you want to make a snapshot, presumably before opening the Registry Editor to tweak the registry.

Update: If the word “hacked” bothers you, feel free to modify the script. Just change the text within quotes to something more generic, such as “Manually created restore point using script.”