1. A complete step-by step tutorial by Anthony Hartup

2.  A restore point takes a snapshot of your system configuration. In the event of your Operating system becoming unstable you can use this Restore Point to return your system to it’s previous state. Windows creates its own restore points intermittently, but you should create one any time you plan to install any new programs or make serious system changes.

3. Go to START/ALL PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/SYSTEM TOOLS/SYSTEM RESTORE

4. You’ll see this screen. Select Create a restore point and press next.

5. You’ll be ask to provide a name for the Restore Point. Write a short description, eg, Installing new game. Press Create.

6. SUCCESS!

7. You’ve now created a Restore Point, so you can feel a little bit safer. If you install any new programs or hardware drivers only to find your system behaving badly, you can use your System Restore Point to undo the changes. System Restore does not affect your user data, so you will not lose any recent files. System Restore is not an anti-virus tool, but in the case of a severe infection it can improve your computer’s performance enough to allow you to remove malware in other ways. You can only use System Restore if Windows is still working. It will not restore a crashed Operating System, unless the system can boot into Safe-Mode. Now I’ll show you how to restore your system.

8. There will be several Restore Points to choose from, including the one that you just created. You can select a restore point either by the name you provided, or the date it was created. Which Restore Point to choose depends on how, and when, your computer problem occurred. If you encounter a problem immediately after installing a new program or updating hardware device drivers, your most-recent Restore Point should work. If, on the other hand, the problem has occurred and worsened over a period of time, you may need to go back to the time the problem began. Go to START/ALL PROGRAMS/ACCESSORIES/SYSTEM TOOLS/SYSTEM RESTORE.

9. Select Restore my computer to an earlier time and press next.

10. You’ll see the Restore Point you created earlier, and the days in bold type in the calendar show the Restore Points Windows has created. Choose the one that you want and press Next

11. Make sure the details are correct on this screen then press Next.

12. Your computer will restart then boot to the System Restore Utility, after which it will restore your system to it’s previous state.