System Restore points are used in Microsoft Windows to restore your computer to a previous state without affecting personal files. They act as snapshots of system settings, installed programs, registry configurations, and system files at a given time. System Restore is usually not enabled by default but is easy to enable and configure. Once it’s enabled, your computer will automatically create system restore points before installing new software, drivers, or Windows updates that could affect system stability.
You can also create system restore points manually as needed if you plan on making a major change to your computer or testing out some software for example. That way if something goes wrong, you can restore your computer back to the point before you made the changes. System Restore is not to be used as a backup since it doesn’t restore your personal files.
If you want to delete your System Restore points, you can delete them all at once from the Windows System Properties section. But if you want to delete specific restore points or maybe view their contents, you will need to do so in a different way. In this article, we will be showing you how to delete or mount specific Windows System Restore points.
Method 1 – Delete Windows System Restore Points Using the Command Line
If you are the type who prefers to do things via the command line, you will like how easy it is to view and delete system restore points using this method. The image below shows our system restore points when we access them using the Windows System Restore tool. We will use this as a comparison for when we run the commands.
The first command we will run is going to be vssadmin list shadows. This will show the current system restore points along with their date, time and shadow copy ID.
We will now use the second command to delete the selected system restore point.
Vssadmin delete shadows /shadow={Shadow Copy ID}
We need to replace {Shadow Copy ID} with the ID from the first command. You can highlight the ID and then right click it to copy it. We will then add it to the command, so it looks like the following.
vssadmin delete shadows /shadow={b928f9a6-5de8-480c-a7d2-a663831c0b0e}
When we run the command, we will have to type in Y to confirm that we want to delete the specific shadow copy.
Now when we go back to the Windows System Restore tool and view our restore points, we can see that the restore point we deleted from the command line is now removed here as well.
Method 2 – Delete or Mount Windows System Restore Points Using a 3rd Party Tool
For our next method, we will be using a free app called System Restore Explorer that can be downloaded here. This software requires .NET 3.5 to run so if your computer does not have .NET 3.5 installed, you will need to install it to run the software. You can download the update here.
Once you start , you will see that the interface looks very similar to the Windows System Restore tool. At the bottom of the app, you will see options for Mount, Unmount and Delete.
We will now mount one of the restore points by selecting it and clicking the Mount button. The app will then open the restore point in File Explorer so you can then browse through the files and folders.
When you are done viewing the files in the restore point, you can go back to System Restore Explorer and click on the Unmount button.
Now we will delete the restore point by selecting it again and clicking the Delete button. You will then see a confirmation box and will need to click the Yes button to remove the restore point.
If you were to go back to the Windows System Restore tool, you would once again see that the restore point has been removed.
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