**Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
If you are like most people, there has been a time (or many times) when you have had problems with your computer such as it not starting up, running slow, showing constant errors or even issues with viruses and spyware. And if you are not doing any kind of backup then you are asking for trouble.
One thing that many people like to use is Windows System Restore points so that when they have an issue, they can revert back to a saved restore point and hopefully get their computer working again. System Restore is built into Windows 11 as well as previous versions of Windows.
When you use System Restore, it will restore your Windows system files to try and get things working again but it will not affect your installed programs or files. So, if you are looking to use System Restore as a backup solution, it is not a good one. In this article, we will be showing you how to create restore points for Windows, apps & files with RollBack RX Pro. This app can be used to restore more than just Windows system files but works in a similar manner to the actual System Restore tool.
After you install RollBack RX, you will need to reboot and then will see a screen with a couple of options as seen below. You should be fine with the default settings unless you have a need to change them.
Once you open the main program, which will also be running down in the Windows system tray, you will see the four main tabs that contain the various settings and options.
The Home tab will show you things such as how large your system drive is and how much used and free space it contains. It will also show you how many snapshots you have taken with the program. You can think of snapshots as restore points.
If you go to the Snapshots tab, you will see the original baseline snapshot that was made during installation. Then as you create more snapshots\restore points, they will be listed here.
To create a new snapshot, click on the New Snapshot button to start the process. You can then give the snapshot a name and add a description if desired. We will make a snapshot before installing the 7-Zip file compression software.
Once the snapshot has been created, it will be listed within the Snapshots tab. The arrow indicates that the particular snapshot represents the current state of the computer.
Now that 7-Zip is installed, we will create another snapshot to demonstrate what happens if you remove some software and then restore a snapshot that was taking after that software was installed.
Now we will uninstall 7-Zip as well as delete a PDF file from the desktop on the same computer. Then we will restore the After 7-Zip snapshot by right clicking on it and choosing Rollback.
You will then get a warning telling you what is about to happen and suggesting that you save any files that were made after the snapshot or exclude them from the restoration process.
If you click on the Exclude button, you can then choose which files or registry settings to leave intact, so they are not affected by the snapshot rollback.
Your computer will then reboot, and you will see the process of the rollback which will look similar to the screen show during Windows updates.
After the process is complete, your computer will restart, and you will see a message telling you that it has been rolled back to an earlier time. It also tells you that you can use the file recovery wizard to retrieve data if needed.
Now that our computer has been restored to the state of the snapshot we chose, we can see that 7-Zip is back as well as the PDF file that we deleted before performing the restore process.
One thing that you may notice is that RollBack RX will perform scheduled daily snapshots on its own.
To view, edit or delete these snapshots, you can go to the Task Scheduler tab and take action on these scheduled tasks.
The Instant Restore tab can be used to start a restore just like you can from the Snapshots tab by using the Rollback Computer option.
The Recover files option can be used to search your snapshots for a specific file to restore. This method may or may not be too effective.
If you really want to recover a file from a snapshot, you should use the Explore snapshot feature. This will allow you to mount a snapshot as a drive with a drive letter where you can then browse it just like any other drive on your computer.
Once you choose a snapshot to explore, it will assign it a drive letter and you can then click on the Open Virtual Drive button to view its files and folders.
In our example, the virtual drive has been mounted with the drive letter F.
When we open the virtual drive, we can then see the entire C drive and browse to the location of the file or folder we want to recover. You can then drag and drop any files or folders to somewhere such as your desktop to export them from the snapshot.
Another nice feature of RollBack RX is that it will give you an option every time you boot your computer to go into the interface to roll back a snapshot without having to go into Windows itself to do so. This comes in handy if you are having a problem getting Windows to start properly.
When you see the RollBack RX start screen, simply press the Home key to load the application. You will then have the option to roll back your computer or even create a new snapshot.
If you choose the Rollback computer option, you will see the same snapshots as you have when using the program from within Windows.
RollBack RX Pro can be downloaded from their website here. They have a free 14 day trial, and the program will cost you around $60 depending on the version you need.
For additional training resources, check out our online IT training courses.
