One feature that many people are unaware of in Windows ME and Windows XP is the System Restore feature.  Microsoft put the controls for this feature in an area that is unknown to many users and one they wouldn't even venture into.  The System Restore feature is a great concept for computer users as it allows you to reverse any unintentional program installations you may have done.   This feature also keeps track of setting changes.  If a setting does not do exactly what you want, you can reverse it and not worry about what exactly you are doing.  This would be great in a perfect world without viruses, unfortunately viruses do exist.

The following is a basic explanation of what the System Restore feature does.  Every time you install a product on your computer, the operating system creates a copy of the configuration and the files in the system folders that are being changed or removed.  The system folders are considered the Windows folder and any folder contained in it, especially the System and the System32 folders.  Normally viruses go into these same system folders.

Assume that you are unaware you have a virus, or it is inactive at this point.  You then decide to install a program.  The operating system has just made a copy of any recently added file to the system folders, including the viruses contained within them.  You now have a very good copy of the virus.  The same operation occurs when you delete files, especially when your anti-virus program deletes files.

I have personally never found System Restore features to be of much use.  It is usually more beneficial to save anything you find important to another drive such as a network drive that gets backed up routinely.  If anything happens to the computer where it is not operating correctly, reload the computer rather then spend countless hours attempting to figure out the problem when you could fix the prolem in less then 2 hours by restoring the system.  A factor to consider also is whether fixing the issue could cause more problems in the end, such as major registry changes that you do not comprehend, this could render the computer inoperable anyway.

If you would like to disable the system restore feature in Windows ME, refer to the documentation that came with your computer.  There have been several ways to disable it in the many versions that have come out.

In Windows XP you will have to do the following to disable the Systems Restore option:

1. Go to the Control Panel
2. If you are using Control Panel in Category View, click on 'Performance and Maintenance'
3. Double click the System Icon
4. If you are in Classic View, simply click on the System Icon
5. On the properties window, got to the System Restore tab
6. On this screen you will simply click on the check box for the 'Turn off System Restore'
7. Click OK and you will be prompted with a dialog, simply press 'Yes'

You have now turned off the System Restore.  An option available if you choose to keep the System Restore 'on', is to turn it off about once a week to once a month and perform a thorough virus scan on the computer.  You will delete any files in the System Restore archives and start with a fresh set when you turn it back on.