How to create and manage manual restore points in Windows using PowerShell

Are you concerned about the security and stability of your computer, especially before installing programs, updates, or making sensitive changes? Manual restore points in Windows are the best card up your sleeve to roll back if something goes wrong.. And the best: You can create them in seconds using PowerShell, gaining agility and complete control over your environment. Let's dive into how to protect your system so trouble doesn't catch you by surprise.

Understand thoroughly how system restore works, know when and how to create your own restore points, What is the difference between automatic and manual transmissions?, and how you can extend the retention period are key issues that aren't often explained in detail. Here's all the information, compiled clearly, straightforwardly, and, of course, in Spanish.

What is a restore point and what is it used for?

Un restore point It's basically a snapshot of your operating system's state taken at a specific point in time. When you create it, Windows saves the files essential to the system's operation and the current configuration. drivers, the registry and critical files. If something goes wrong after a change, you can go back to that point., saving hours (or days) of headaches.

Restore points do NOT affect your personal documents, photos, or saved files.; they only affect programs, drivers, and system settings. That is, if you create a backup today, install an update tomorrow, and your computer starts to fail, you'll recover to its previous state and all your files will remain intact.

Windows creates these points automatically (for example, before a major update), but You can and should create your own just before any significant change.. This way you eliminate unnecessary risks.

Advantages of creating restore points manually with PowerShell

PowerShell is the Swiss Army knife of Windows. Using it to create restore points allows you to:

• Automate the process: You can launch the order whenever you want without navigating through menus or wizards.
• Customize the description from the point to easily remember the reason why you created it.
• Include it in scripts maintenance, so that your own equipment is always protected before any scheduled task.
• Save time and avoid human errors: One command and that's it.

The best part? It's very easy. All you need is administrator permissions and a desire to protect your system.

Activate and check system protection

Before creating or restoring points, system protection must be activated on the drive you want to protect (usually C:). If it isn't, neither automatic nor manual backups will be created.

To check and activate this protection:

1. Right click on the Start button and select System.
2. In the advanced options, look for System protection (usually found in the left panel or under “Information” depending on the version of Windows).
3. Select the main drive (C:) and click on Setup.
4. Brand Enable system protection and define the disk space to use for restore points. (It's common to leave between 5% and 10% of the partition.)

That's it! Now, you and Windows can create and manage these points seamlessly.

How to create a manual restore point with PowerShell

The command is simple and straightforward, but there are some important details:

1. Opens PowerShell as administrator (search for “PowerShell”, right click and select “Run as administrator”).
2. Run this command:
   Checkpoint-Computer -Description "Name_of_your_choice" -RestorePointType 'MODIFY_SETTINGS'

Replaces Name_of_your_choice by a description of the reason, such as “Before installing printer driver.”

When you run the command, you'll receive immediate confirmation if everything goes well. The point typically takes less than a minute to generate.

To view the created points, you can use the classic restore wizard from the System properties, but you can also check the system event log if you want to check it in detail.

What types of restore points are there?

There are two main types of points:

• Automatic: : Windows creates them during important events (software installation, updates, etc.)
• Manual: You create them yourself, when you consider it necessary to protect your configuration before any changes.

The main difference is that only manuals ensure full control at the exact moment before a critical change.

Retention period and restore point management

How long restore points remain depends on your settings and the amount of space reserved:

• By default, Windows deletes the oldest points when the designated space is full. to the protection of the system.
• You can only restore your device to states within those points. If you delete space or there's little space available, the old points will disappear sooner.
• You can manually delete the points if needed, for example, from tools like CCleaner or from the advanced restore interface itself.

In more advanced environments, such as servers with Active Directory or Dataverse, retention periods can be managed using PowerShell to extend from 7 to 28 days, especially in production environments.
This is very useful if you need to ensure the ability to go back a full month.

Restore your system to a previous point: how to do it step by step

Restoring the system is a reversible operation (if you do not do it in safe mode nor from advanced options), and allows you to return to a state where the operating system was stableIt doesn't delete your photos or documents; it only affects programs, drivers, and system settings.

1. Go to System properties (you can search for it from the Start menu).
2. In the System protection, Click on System Restore.
3. The wizard will display a list of available restore points, with date, time, and reason.
4. Select the most appropriate one (usually the last one, but you can show all of them).
5. You can use the option Detect affected programs to see what will be added or deleted in the process.
6. Confirm and follow the instructions. The device will restart, and after a few minutes, you'll be returned to the selected location.

Remember During the restoration process you should not interrupt the equipment or turn it offOnce completed, you'll see a success message and your personal files will remain as they were.

Advanced Recovery: Cases with Active Directory and other services

In enterprise environments, such as Windows servers with Active Directory, restoration can be more complex. Two key concepts come into play here:

• Unauthorized recovery: Returns the domain to the state of backup, and normal replication takes care of resynchronizing objects and attributes with the rest of the network.
• Authorized recovery: Allows you to declare an object (user, group, organizational unit) as “valid,” causing its data to propagate to the rest of the domain after the restore.

Furthermore, Active Directory offers the Recycle Bin option, which, if enabled before deletion, allows deleted objects (users, groups, etc.) to be recovered with most attributes intact.

To directly restore Active Directory objects using PowerShell, the key command is:

Restore-ADObject -Identity «GUID_or_DN» -NewName «optional_new_name»

In addition, there are tools like How to recover deleted or corrupted services from services.msc in Windows for specific cases, but in advanced AD restore, the use of PowerShell becomes essential.

Tips and Limitations: How Far You Can Go in Restoration

If you have the Active Directory Recycle Bin enabled, the restoration is simple and retains almost all attributes. Without it, the recovery is partial: you'll lose many attributes, have to create new passwords, and reconfigure group memberships, which requires additional work.

It is also important to know that There is a lifespan for deleted objects in ADOnce this period has passed (usually 180 days, which can be changed), they cannot be recovered.

In more complex systems, the best protection is to have a full backup of the domain controllerThis ensures that you can restore any object, even if the Recycle Bin isn't enabled.

Manual and Automatic Backups: Key Differences and Advanced Management

On platforms like Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse, there are two ways to back up environments:

• Automatic copies: They are created by default and their retention depends on whether there are Dynamics 365 applications (up to 28 days in production; 7 days if there are no).
• Manual copies: The user decides when, typically before critical customizations or changes. There's no limit to the number you can create, but retention also varies (7 or 28 days depending on the type of environment).

The retention period can be extended in some cases using PowerShell and the command Set-AdminPowerAppEnvironmentBackupRetentionPeriod, which gives you more room to recover environments if something goes wrong.

How to delete restore points and free up space

If you need to free up disk space, you can delete old restore points Using utilities like CCleaner. Simply go to the "Tools" section, then "System Restore," and delete the ones you want. Remember that you'll only be able to keep a limited number of points depending on the space reserved, so adjust settings to optimize protection without wasting resources.