Is Using System Restore Necessary

Hi Everyone,

I think this is probably a stupid thought I have so I figure I should check it out with all of you.

Is it a good idea to use System Restore to return the computer to the state it was in before installing programs if they have been uninstalled or is that totally unnecessary?

I just installed IE7, hated it. Installed IE8 to see if that was any better, it would not even work and neither would most anything else until I uninstalled it.

So, I uninstalled both of them, along with all this other crap that, according to System Restore, IE7 installed before IE7 was actually installed and all seems to be working fine, but I want all traces of that crap off my system.

Wanting it all gone completely has me wondering if I should use System Restore, what do you think?

I checked out System Restore to make sure that there were restore points for right before the installs and was surprised to find that right before it made one for the install of IE7, it made three other ones for other programs and or updates. I did not bargain for those and they were not removed with IE7, however I was able to remove them through add/remove programs.

I do not care if IE6 is less secure than the other ones, it is sooo much faster and user friendly, even after customizing 7 to be as close to what I want as possible, that until I am absolutely forced out of IE6, I will continue to use it and at that time, if I haven't already done so, I will switch to Firefox.

Btw, if anyone has ctfmon running on their system thanks ONLY to IE7, there is an easy way to stop it. Just let me know and I will tell you how.

In any case, am I good with just uninstalling those things or should I use System Restore?

Also, just to be sure, when System Restore makes a restore point at the time a program is installed, is that made before or after the install?

Logic says it is before, but I am not certain Windows is logical about this or anything else.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all your help

Edited by Stang777, 14 April 2010 - 06:44 AM.

IE 8 is more secure, and if something is slowing it down you can make a post so it can be fixed to run at it's best. There are other options for you also, have you considered another browser? Firefox has a very good rating for speed and many many other add-on options available. firefox would be a nice choice for you because it has great speed and security


Spybot has been known to slow down IE 7 and 8 so if your using that you need to disable something. I can't recall what it was because that was a while back and I have not checked it out to see if either IE or Spybot has made any fixes to that issue

Edited by Joe C, 14 April 2010 - 08:35 AM.

Thank you for your reply and help Joe.

Quite honestly though, browsers are not the issue and I have no interest in trying to correct the issues with IE7 or 8. Neither program will ever be back on my system. I only mentioned them as they were the programs that I had uninstalled and want all traces of gone.

I do have Spybot however I am sure the issue that slows things down is when TeaTimer is enabled and I do not have that enabled so Spybot is not running in the background at all.

Other than when IE7 and 8 were on my system, I have no problem with the speed of anything and the speed of the internet with those programs were not the only thing I hated about them. There is no reason I have to have them, heck, the only reason I even tried them out at all is that I wasn't doing anything else so on the off chance that I would like them, I gave them a try. I didn't like them so they are history and do not need to be dealt with. Maybe at some point I will give Firefox a try, but right now I just want to make sure that these programs did not leave anything on my system.

I hope this isn't coming across as rude but the browsers really have nothing to do with what I am trying to find out here.

My question is whether or not using System Restore is necessary to clear out all traces of the things that were installed and uninstalled tonight, or I guess it is now last night.

I do appreciate you taking the time to reply and offer advice, please don't take what I am saying here to mean that I don't.

Edited by Stang777, 14 April 2010 - 09:00 AM.

"Note System Restore does not replace the process of uninstalling a program. To completely remove the files installed by a program, you must remove the program using Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel or the program's own uninstall program. To open Add or Remove Programs, click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs."

From Using SR to Undo Changes

I'm not sure what you are asking...I don't use SR, I prefer routine backups.

Louis

ctfmon has nothing to do with Internet Explorer it is related to Microsoft Office Products. If you have no MS Office Suites on your machine, and there is a CTFMON then I would start scanning for malware immediately. The speed difference between IE7 and IE8 is not noticeable. They both perform the same, and IE8 fixes a lot of security holes in IE7.

What is CTFMON.exe?

I'm not sure if you can remove all traces of IE 7 and IE 8 without breaking IE6
I would do a drive image as a back up of my pc first and then you can try a few things. Revo Uninstaller does remove traces of programs in the registry but I do not know of anybody that's tried it with a previous install of IE
http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninst...e_download.html

looks like there is a fix for the IE 8 and the spybot issue

Update: Microsoft finally released a fix for this issue. The update has been released on June 9th. If you experienced problems with IE8 and Spybot's immunization, please download the update "KB969897" via the Windows updates or download your copy directly at Microsoft.

I have spybot but I rarely use IE8 so I never had any problems with it.

Here's the read on it
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/news/2009-03-25.html

Stang777, You really have no idea what your missing out on by not checking into firefox
there are literally 1000's of add ons and stuff to customize your browser
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/br...e/type:1/cat:12

Thank you everyone.

Louis, I appreciate your help and the link, thank you. I understand that programs need to be uninstalled and that using SR does not replace doing that, that is why I uninstalled them.

I just wanted to make sure that everything was uninstalled and any changes those programs may bave made to any other file was undone by the uninstall so I was thinking of using System Restore. I am not usually that worried about things being totally undone, but I hated those programs so much I wanted to live as if they never touched my system.


Crypto, thank you but yes it does... http://www.dslreports.com/faq/15629?r=649

It never ran before I installed IE7 but it ran immediately upon using it. I have never had Office and my system is clean.

The above link will also tell anyone who wants to stop it from running how to do it.

There may not be a difference between the speed of IE7 and IE8 but there sure is a difference in the speed and everything else between IE6 and IE7 and that difference is excruciatingly noticeable.


Joe, thank you, I appreciate your help and all that info. I didn't even think to use a program like Revo since I had already uninstalled them, but maybe that is what I should do. I would hate to break 6 though so maybe I should just live with the traces. I am starting to think that most stuff, if not everything, was undone by the uninstall as things seem to be working the same as before.

Last night I was just so incensed by the experience I had with those programs that I may have been just little bit irrational about it, juuust a little bit, lol. At one point I even considered reformatting and starting over just to make sure it was all gone. Yea, just a little bit irrational, lol. What can I say? It was late, lol. Now that I have had some sleep, I do not seem to care as much, imagine that, lol

I am surprised it was the immunization feature that was the problem instead of the TeaTimer function. I do use that so maybe that was why IE8 wouldn't even completely load, but we will never know because it will never go back on this system.

I know I really need to try Firefox, should have tried that one last night instead of the crap I did. Once I get over last nights fiasco and get brave again, I am sure I will try it. I really don't know why I chose trying the other ones over that one last night. I have been a lot more interested in trying Firefox than the other ones for a long time. The only thing about Firefox that has had me putting it off is all the add-ons. I was told in another thread about some of them to use but it just seems like too much to figure out so I keep putting it off.

Thank you everyone, I appreciate the info and your help

The only way to ensure that all related files have been removed...after uninstalling a program...is to do a manual search of the registry and a manual search of your files.

As much as we would like to believe that the program uninstallers remove everything...I think we all have evidence in our craniums indicating that this does not happen all the time.

A manual search of files and registry is the only way to be sure...and if you don't use the appropriate search strings...those won't work either .

Louis

Sometime...go into regedit...and just take a look at the folders under the Software categories. You will see folders for programs that have been long uninstalled...and accompanying other registry entries.

In general, these cause no problem and are, IMO, not worth the effort that some might go to...to attain a pristine (or near-pristine, to be honest) registry.

Edited by hamluis, 14 April 2010 - 09:02 PM.

Stang,

Have you installed sp3 yet? It may help with IE7-8 to have it install properly, besides support for sp2 will be done in July. Try sp3 before IE7 next time, a friend from church was having that same problem and it worked for him doing that.

Dan

Louis, thank you very much, I appreciate you giving me all that info and I will check out the registry for those entries some time, just for the heck of it. I agree it is probably not worth the effort to do anything with them, but it might be kind of interesting to see what is there. Thank you.


Dan, thank you for your help and advice, I appreciate it. I have not installed SP3 and agree that may be part of the problem but I do not want to upgrade to SP3 unless programs I have to have make me do so. I am hoping to get away with never installing it. I am good with living without IE7 or IE8 and I am one of the so-called stupid people who do not do Windows updates so I don't think I will be affected much by the support for SP2 ending. I am glad to know that I am not the only one who has had trouble with those progams. Thank you.

ctfmon has nothing to do with Internet Explorer it is related to Microsoft Office Products. If you have no MS Office Suites on your machine, and there is a CTFMON then I would start scanning for malware immediately. The speed difference between IE7 and IE8 is not noticeable. They both perform the same, and IE8 fixes a lot of security holes in IE7.

What is CTFMON.exe?

Stang777, there just may be something in this, Mate. I have had similar problems to you and I do not have MS Office fitted, yet Threatfire, similar to TeaTimer, in effect, picks it up as generating harmfull Programs, yet NOTHING else is picking up Malware. I am certainly having another look at it now and want to Thank cryptodan for bringing it up.

Ray.

Last night I was just so incensed by the experience I had with those programs that I may have been just little bit irrational about it, juuust a little bit, lol. At one point I even considered reformatting and starting over just to make sure it was all gone. Yea, just a little bit irrational, lol. What can I say? It was late, lol. Now that I have had some sleep, I do not seem to care as much, imagine that, lol

Stang777, we all have been there. The thought of format the damn thing and reinstall has crossed my mind too. So now I use SelfImage.

I installed Windows XP and all the updates, drivers, basic software etc. Then I made an image using SelfImage. Now whenever, I feel like I have made a mess, or I become suspicious that malware has hit the computer I use SelfImage to go back to freshly installed state. It works for me as I have this dual boot PC with XP and Vista. So when I have to wipe XP, I run SelfImage from Vista. When I have to wipe Vista, I run SelfImage from XP.

Whole restoring from SelfImage takes around 10 minutes for Vista (10GB backup) and 2-3 minutes for XP(2.4 GB backup).

Drover, thankyou and I know that in many cases when ctfmon is running it is caused by malware. However, I also know that in my case, it was not. It had nothing to do with anything other than the fact that I had installed IE7. I knew that even before I found the article that I posted a link for. That is why I went looking for a way to stop IE from running it and came across that article from DSLReports. If you are running IE7 then that could be the reason for it running on your system, maybe IE8 does it too, I don't know. I can understand why your program would pick it up as often when ctfmon is running it is due to malware.


Romeo, thank you for understanding and saying so and thank you for the info about that program and for the link to it. I have considered using something like that before but, for some dumb reason, kept thinking I should only do it on a fresh install. After last night, I am thinking there is no reason it shouldn't be done at any point in time, so I am going to dl that and figure out how to use it and make an image. After what I went through last night, I am a little worried about installing anything but I will get brave enough to give it a shot. Thank you

Edited by Stang777, 15 April 2010 - 01:12 AM.

I will let you know, Mate.

I only run IE6, but never use it? I use Firefox and Thunderbird as my default.

Just a thing, I picked up? It could have came in on Install, when I set my Keyboard to Australian English? It is an interesting thing. Well worth finding out.

Ray.

Edited by Drovers Dog, 15 April 2010 - 04:22 AM.