If your computer has malfunctioned or if any recent update you made to the computer is not favorable, then it is possible to undo this change and restore your system to an earlier point in time using a built-in tool called ‘System Restore’. This tool has the ability to undo any recent changes to your system thus helping you resolve issues that you may be experiencing.
System Restore is readily available by typing the term in the task bar’s Search feature. But in some instances like when your system has experienced a crash, a blue screen error or when it fails to boot normally, you may not be able to access System Restore the usual way. In that case, you can perform a system restore using the command prompt instead and you will see how in this blog post.
How to perform a system restore using just Command Prompt in Windows 10?
- Restart your computer and when the Windows logo appears, press the F8 key. You may need to press this key multiple times in order to enter the blue screen with the advanced options menu
- In the ‘Choose an Option’ screen, click Troubleshoot > Advanced Options
- In the Advanced Options screen, select Start-up Settings
- Click Restart to be entered into a screen where you can select how Windows should be booted
- In this screen, select Safe Mode with Command Prompt
- Then login to your computer in the same way as you normally would be entered into the command prompt screen
- In the command prompt, type the following commands and hit Enter after each of them
‘cd restore’
‘rstrui.exe’
- In the System Restore window that opens, click Next to begin the process
- In the next screen, choose an appropriate restore point and click Next to restore your system to the selected point.
After the System Restore is initiated, it should take about 30 minutes for the process to complete. If the restore is successful, issues that are caused due to Windows updates, driver updates, new software installation etc. will be resolved and your computer should behave normally. However, if you decided to perform a System Restore due to virus attacks, please note that it cannot undo virus attacks or related errors. In that case, you need to perform a detailed anti-virus scan to treat the virus.
Lost files after a system restore?
Usually, personal files are not affected after a system restore. However, it is still better to be prepared by having a backup of your system just in case. In the event that you don’t have a backup and you lose some files after system restore, recovery is possible with the help of Hi5 data recovery software.
Using this tool, you can recover all types of files like photos, videos, PDF’s, Word files, Excel files, and various others. You can even download a trial version of the tool for free if you want to see the files it can recover and quality of recovered files. The advantage of this tool is that it can also be used in multiple other scenarios like recovering files after a factory reset, after formatting a drive or after partitioning a drive.
