Massive thanks for this, although I'm afraid I haven't quite got it working XD

I also had that problem with the dll file being missing. I did some of the things posted here and such, and that error message has gone away.

But now I get two different ones.

I get this one when I try to start up System Restore the normal way:




And I get this one when I open the System Protection tab:



Also the "System Restore" button on that tab is greyed out and, as far as I can tell, it's "searching for drives" forever.

Any ideas?

First try to manually register the System Restore DLLs manually in an elevated command prompt. Click on start and in the search box type "Command Prompt". Right-click on Command Prompt and choose "Run as Administrator". Now in command prompt type the following:

cd \windows\system32
regsvr32 srcore.dll
regsvr32 srwmi.dl

See if you are able to enable search for drives and thus enable system restore.

2. Your COM+ catalog might be corrupt and it needs to be rebuilt. Download the Com+ Fix zip file, extract it to your desktop and run "rebuildCOM1.bat".

3. Also, try to see if you can run system restore in safe mode.

This helped, thank you so much! We're getting there, I can now at least open System Restore, although I can't run it because I need to turn it on from the System Protection tab which still doesn't work.




How would I do this? It may well resolve the problem, seeing as it looks like that's where it's getting stuck.



This also may well fix it as I remember reading about how the COM+ catalog might be corrupt, I checked that the service had been started already, but Microsoft didn't give a clear indication of how to actually fix it. Thanks again for this, I'll have to try that tomorrow morning and let you know how I got on.



That was obvious. I don't know why I didn't try that already.

Again, massive thanks. You've already been more helpful than the entire Internet.

Also: Worth a try to see if this quick fix works. Go to Start, Run. Type in: gpedit.msc
In Group Policy navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > System Restore.

Change the Turn off Configuration and Turn off System Restore to disabled. Then in command prompt launch gpupdate /force to force a policy refresh.

Also if you have an Antivirus firewall installed try temporarily disabling it to see if the System Protection tab is accessible.

Does this also allow you to use System Restore from the Startup Repair Preinstallation Environment?

Not at the moment you cannot perform an offline system restore using the Recovery Environment. I'm hopeful I can find a way to enable this feature in the near future.

Hi, Where is the system restore.zip file?

I can't find it on the site.

Here you go.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VKE7O03T

I install the batch file also enable everything you mention and configure the system restore i tried to restore the system 3 times i only get an error as you can see in the snapshot!

Some Antiviruses will conflict with System Restore. For example some users reported (on Windows 7) reported having to disable the self-defense feature of Avast to get System Restore to roll back to the previous restore point. If you can disable your antivirus prior to running system restore try this first. If the same error message occurs, try the following if this applies to you.

One device at a time, start unplugging all of your peripherals. For example, unplug your printer from the back of your computer. Try system restore. Next try your scanner. Try system restore again. Then try your camera. This is just an example you might only have a printer. By unplugging the devices one at a time instead of all at once you can do a process of elimination and find out which device is causing the issue with system restore. Some device printers, especially HP printers (personal experience) have had issues with system restore. I've gotten that same error message before on my machine when it first ran Vista and for some reason my HP printer didn't agree with it.