Can I choose a custom restore date to restore my computer?

You can only restore to restore points that actually exist.
If there is no restore point on March 1st., then you can not restore to that date.

What is the computer’s criteria for listing a restore date?

@Dutchess_III: “What is the computer’s criteria for listing a restore date?”

from Windows help:

“System Restore uses restore points to return your system files and settings to an earlier point in time without affecting personal files. Restore points are created automatically every week, and just before significant system events, such as the installation of a program or device driver. You can also create a restore point manually.”

I can’t see where I can do it manually.

You only have the restore points available to choose from. Some systems are set up to delete old restore points automatically. You can disable this feature…

Also, you cannot remove individual restore points. They are all linked to each other.’

So you’re stuck with March 14th unless you want to do a reinstall of the system from factory settings.

In my programs list I noticed that there were a bunch of programs installed on the 14th. That’s when I started having problems. So I just threw caution to the wind and uninstalled everything that was installed that day. Most of it looked legit, but I killed it anyway. Now my system seems to be running fine.

Good for you Dutchess.

Windows doesn’t give you many options for recovery any more. In fact, Microsoft now recommends with many viruses that you reinstall the operating system back to its factory state.

Who wants to do that though, when they have years of data and personal files they’d lose, right?

Exactly.

@NanoNano: “Who wants to do that though, when they have years of data and personal files they’d lose, right?”

Your backups should contain all of your data, so you wouldn’t lose anything. If a drive failure of your pc would result in the loss of any data, you’re doing it wrong.

that is why you save any data on a separate partition, preferrably an entirely different hard drive
That way you can safely nuke the windows partition.

hominid:

The only people I know who periodically make incremental and full backups of their home computers are people who work in the PC industry and know how unreliable these machines can be and how they can fail catastrophically.

@NanoNano – Sorry for my initial response. I’m just suggesting that there is no reason at this point to have your data sitting on your OS partition (as @ragingloli mentions) and with no backup.

My wife still hasn’t yet transitioned to a Chromebook, so some maintenance is required for her pc. But she saves all files locally in a folder that is auto-synced to Dropbox. This way, there is no backup required, and our house can burn down and she’d be able to access her files from anywhere. Plus, they’re available on her phone.

Anyway, there are many options now due to the affordability of external drives, cloud services, and auto-backup services. The days of making your data dependent on the health of your pc and OS are long gone. And that’s a good thing.

You know, most of those files that were downloaded (not by me) on the 14th were Canon files for my camera. I’ve had the camera for over a year so I guess the were updates. Went to download pic off the camera..and had to reinstall the program that lets me do that….and now my computer is acting wonky again. What should I do? Should I call Canon?

Don’t install any camera software. Just drop your sd card into your card reader and move files (photos) directly using Windows Explorer. Or you should be able to just plug the camera into USB port and it should appear as a drive.

:D Works. Awesomeness @hominid! It’ll be a lot easier to do, too.

Oh holy crap. I accidentally deleted my entire operating system yesterday. OMG.