Adjusting The Amount Of Space System Restore Uses [Windows 7]

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Posted May 21, 2009 | by Rich Menga  

On the PCMech LIVE show last night a question came in that asked where the setting is to adjust the space System Restore uses in Windows 7.

This actually took quite a bit of digging to find it. And to note, this is different compared to Vista’s location.

Step 1.

Start "ball", Control Panel

image

Step 2.

System and Security (left side green link)

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Step 3.

System (right side green link)

image

Step 4.

System Protection (left side link)

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Step 5.

System Protection (tab)

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Step 6.

Configure (click configure button, see previous screen shot)

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On this screen is the familiar slider where we can set the amount space Windows 7 uses for System Restore.

Faster ways to get there

Fast way:

  • Start "ball"
  • Right click Computer
  • Left click Properties from the small menu that appears
  • Click System Protection on left
  • Click System Protection tab
  • Click Configure button

Faster way:

  • Start "ball"
  • Type system in the "Search programs and files" field
  • Click System under Control Panel, like this:
    image
  • Click System Protection on left
  • Click System Protection tab
  • Click Configure button

Fastest way:

  • Win-key + Pause-Break key (keystroke)
  • Click System Protection on left
  • Click System Protection tab
  • Click Configure button

Which Of These Traits Applies To YOUR Computing Life?...

3 Responses to “Adjusting The Amount Of Space System Restore Uses [Windows 7]”

  1. mrcook says:
    May 24, 2009 at 7:51 pm

    Good detail. Can you show the steps in Vista ?

    Reply
  2. mrcook says:
    May 27, 2009 at 10:19 am

    Found it! Vista allocates 15% of HD by default. I recovered 30Gb.

    If you want to change the amount of space used by System Restore, you should use the following command:

    vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[drive letter]: /For=[drive letter]: /Maxsize=[maximum size]

    MaxSizeSpec must be 300MB or greater and accepts the following suffixes: KB (for kilobytes), MB (for megabytes), GB (for gigabytes), TB (for terabytes), PB (for petabytes) and EB (for exabytes). If a suffix is not supplied, MaxSizeSpec is in bytes. If MaxSizeSpec is not specified, then there will be no limit to the amount of space it may use.

    For example, if you want System Restore to use a maximum of 1GB of space for the restore points on drive “C:”, you should type the following:

    vssadmin resize shadowstorage /On=C: /For=C: /Maxsize=1GB

    Vista….Hmmmmm

    Reply

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