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I used to tell people that Remote Desktop was the best (only?) good thing that Microsoft has ever done in any of its products. Not any more. System Restore has now replaced Remote Desktop as M$’s premiere bragging point as far as I’m concerned. The System Restore function goes beyond merely saving time and effort and jumps straight into the realm of literally saving your ass. Like it did mine just the other day.

I was on a client site, and in order to get the job done I hadto put my company-issued laptop on the client’s local domain. That’s a big no-no at my company for a variety of very good reasons… all of which I ignored in the interests of getting things done. So, I changed my laptop’s name and associated it with the client’s domain. I logged in. I was instantly greeted with a window informing me that Windows was uninstalling all the “managed software” from my OLD network.

“Managed Software”?

Yeah…. you know, stuff like Word and Excel and PowerPoint. And Adobe Acrobat. All gone. Microsoft Outlook? With all my emails? Gone! I don’t mean “shortcut removed from the desktop” gone, I mean Entire Application UNINSTALLED GONE!

The Problem:

The client didn’t have licenses for my installed application, so when I joined their domain, the domain controller unpimped my laptop.

Fortunately I’m an admin on the laptop, so I could just go back to the office and re-establish my connection with the proper network and all of my apps will return, right? Right!? Uhh, no. Being a local admin on a computer does not make you a network admin, and I was unable to place my laptop back on its home domain. The only way I was going to set things right was to go to Operations and admit that I did the naughty with the client’s network. They would fix it, of course… after firing off an email to my boss, who would promptly schedule me for a “talking to”.

Uhh…yeah, I’d rather not, thanks.

The Solution:

Somebody mentioned System Restore when I was still on site with the client, but I promptly forgot about it at the time. Now, faced with the consequences of my own overzealous desire to get some friggin’ work done, the phrase “system restore” bubbled up from the depths of my memory. What exactly WAS system restore, and could it help me?

What it IS is a backup of your system configuration, that allows you to restore your system to exactly (almost) the way it was on a specific date… like, say, the day BEFORE I connected to the client’s domain. Yes, that is exactly what I did. Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->System Restore. I picked a date that I wanted to restore to and started the process. Windows was even kind enough to inform me that I would be restoring to a different domain and computer name (which was exactly what I wanted to do!). A few long minutes later, I rebooted and entered my familiar work password.

Were my apps back? No. …but I could now connect to my work domain as if nothing had happened, because, from my laptop’s point of view, nothing HAD happened. When I reconnected, my laptop re-installed all of my “managed” software and all was right with the world.

Apps reinstalled. Talking-To avoided. Ass Saved.

Thanks Bill.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.