Computer Tips From A Computer Guy

Adjust the Maximum Disk Space Used by System Protection in Windows 7

Posted: 07 Mar 2011 03:21 AM PST

System Protection is a feature of Windows 7 that lets you turn back the clock on your PC when troubleshooting it just won’t remove the errors or viruses that are making your computer act strangely. Using Restore Points, you can restore your PC to the way it was before you started having trouble. Using a setting for System Protection, you can adjust the maximum disk space used by System Protection to store these Restore Points.

System Protection and Restore Points

When Windows 7 is behaving strangely or when you get a virus on your PC, there are times when it is better to turn back the clock than try to fix the problem. Restore Points are created for that purpose. Windows 7 even creates multiple Restore Points to make sure you can always restore your PC to a time before the errors started.

Unfortunately, these Restore Points can take up a lot of space on your hard drive. Rather than turning off System Protection or resorting to creating manual Restore Points, you can adjust the maximum hard disk space System Protection uses for creating Restore Points. This way you strike a balance between protection and wasted system resources.

Adjusting Disk Space Reserved for Restore Points

Begin by click on Start and right clicking on My Computer. Choose Properties from the menu to open the System window. On the left hand side of the window, click on the link labeled Advanced System Settings.

You should now be looking at the System Properties window. Click on the System Protection tab and notice the part of the window labeled Protection Settings.

If you are like most users of Windows 7, System Protection is turned on only on the drive that contains the installation of Windows; for most people, that’s the C hard drive. Click on the C drive in the list of drives and then click on the Configure button. You should now be looking at the System Protection for Local Disk (C:) window.

Look for a section of the window labeled Disk Space Usage and note the value next to Current Usage. This is the total space on your hard drive currently being used by System Protection to store files as Restore Points. For the user pictured above, this value is 3.13 GB.

The slider under that value is how you can change the Max Usage value. Notice that the user pictured above has allocated 1% of the hard drive to storing restore points. This amounts to 10.00 GB of space for the 1000 GB (1 TB) drive in the computer. Move the slider to the left or right until you have adjusted the value to represent the maximum amount of hard drive space Windows 7 should use for System Protection files.

System Protection is a backup system that stores old files as Restore Points on your hard drive. When you install Windows 7, the operating system automatically assigns a maximum value that represents the amount of space reserved for storing these Restore Points. Using a simple slider on the System Protection window, you can adjust the maximum disk space used for System Protection files.

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Aseem Kishore (digitalfingerprint: a59a56dce36427d83e23b501579944fcakmk1980 (74.125.94.84) )

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Adjust the Maximum Disk Space Used by System Protection in Windows 7