System Restore Points - Stop XP Dual Boot Delete

How to Stop System Restore Points from being Deleted in Vista and Windows 7 when Dual Booting with XP​

   Information

When you are dual booting XP with Vista and/or Windows 7, this will show you how to stop XP from deleting all of the System Restore Points and Shadow Copies in Vista and Windows 7 everytime you start XP.

You must be logged in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

For more information, see also:

• Microsoft Help and Support: KB926185
• System Restore "restore points" are missing or deleted

   Note

In Vista and Windows 7, shadow copies are used to maintain System Restore Points. Additionally, shadow copies are used to maintain Complete PC Backup files. Therefore, when you access the volume from an earlier operating system (XP), it will delete all restore points and all except the most recent versions of Complete PC Backup files in Vista and Windows 7.

   Tip

This problem occurs because the volume snapshot driver that is included with Vista and Windows 7 uses disk structures that are incompatible with earlier versions of Windows. Therefore, the earlier operating system deletes Vista and Windows 7 shadow copies with the associated restore points. This behavior occurs because the earlier Windows operating systems do not recognize the new disk structures.

   Warning

This does not actually fix the problem. It is a workaround that will stop XP from deleting the restore points and shadow copies. After you restart XP, you will not be able to access the volume Vista and/or Windows 7 is on from XP. However, you can still access the volume that XP is on from Vista and Windows 7.

It has been reported that some 3rd party disk defragmentation programs could also delete your restore points when used.

OPTION ONE

Using a REG File Download

   Warning

This needs to be done in XP, not in Vista or Windows 7. This download assumes that Vista or Windows 7 is installed on the D: drive as the second OS. If this is not true for you, or you need to add another drive to be hidden from XP, then do OPTION TWO below to do this manually with the drive letter that your Vista or Windows 7 is installed on instead.

1. To Stop XP from Deleting Restore Points ​

A) Click on the Download button below to download the file below.​

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Stop_XP.reg​

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B) Go to step 3.​

2. To Restore Default Settings in XP​

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A) Click on the Download button below to download the file below.​

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Restore_Default_Settings.reg​

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3. Click on Save, and save the .reg file to the Desktop.​

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4. Right click on the downloaded .reg file and click on Merge.​

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5. Approve the merge when prompted.​

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6. Restart XP to apply the changes.​

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7. When done, you can delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.​

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OPTION TWO

Manually Through Registry Editor

   Warning

This needs to be done in XP, not in Vista or Windows 7.

1. Open the Start Menu, click on My Computer to open it, then make note of the drive letter for the Vista and/or Windows 7 installation that you wan to prevent XP from seeing to prevent their restore points from being deleted.​

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2. Open the Start Menu, click on Run to open it,, then type regedit and press Enter.​

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3. In regedit, navigate to the location below. (see screenshot below)​

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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices​

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4. To Stop XP from Deleting Restore Points​

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A) In the left pane, right click on MountedDevices and click on New and Key.​

NOTE: If you already have the Offline key under MountedDevices, then skip this step and go to step 4C. (see screenshot below step 4C )​

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B) Type Offline and press Enter.​

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C) In the right pane of Offline, right click on a empty area and click on New and DWORD Value. (see screenshot below)​

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D) Type \DosDevices\D: and press Enter. (see screenshot below step 4F)​

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NOTE: While in XP, if your Vista or Windows 7 is not showing as being on the D: drive in Computer, then substitute D: with the drive letter that it is shown to be on instead. For example, if it is shown to be on the E: drive, then type \DosDevices\E: instead. Repeat this step if you wish to hide another drive letter from XP.​

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E) In the right pane, right click on \DosDevices\D: and click on Modify.​

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F) Type 1, and click on OK. (see screenshot below)​

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G) The registry should now look like this. (see screenshot below)​

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H) Repeat steps 4C to 4G for any other drive letter that you want to prevent them from being seen by XP.​

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I) Go to step 6.​

5. To Restore the Default XP Settings​

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A) In the right pane of Offline, right click on \DosDevices\D:, and click on Delete. (see screenshot below step 4H)​

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B) Click on Yes to confirm the deletion.​

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C) Repeat step 5 for any other listed drive letter that you would like XP to be able to see again.​

6. Restart XP to apply the changes.​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Create a System Restore Shortcut in Vista
• How to Create a System Restore Point in Vista
• How to Undo the Last System Restore in Vista
• How to Do a System Restore in Vista
• How to Change the System Restore Disk Space Usage in Vista
• How to Turn System Restore On or Off in Vista
• How to Create a Create System Restore Point Shortcut in Vista
• How to Make a "Create System Restore Point" Shortcut in XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8
• How to Add "Create Restore Point" to Context Menu in XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8
• How to Change the Default Boot Partition in Vista
• How to Create a Complete Computer Backup and Restore Image in Vista
• How to Change the Automatic System Restore Point Settings in Vista Task Scheduler
• How to Enable or Disable Create Vista System Restore Point when New Device Driver is Installed
• How to Enable or Disable Create Vista System Restore Point when a Application is Installed
• How to Do a Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP
• How to Do a Dual Boot Installation with Windows Vista and XP
• How to Do a Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and Vista

 

[Brink]

Yeah, I do love using disposable virtual machines.

 

[Ex_Brit]

Exactly...;-)

 

[Ivan05]

Hello Peter,

I would think that since the XP VM didn't see your Vista or Windows 7 installations that it shouldn't be deleting you restore points as well.

If you manually create a restore point in Vista and Windows 7, do they get wiped out soon after you start the XP VM?

Shawn, excellent thread. Linked here from your dual boot tutorial over at sevenforums. That one was excellent too by the way.

I've got an old Nikon SCSI film scanner who's software won't run on Win 7 without the Adaptec ASPI layer installed. Adaptec pulled the plug on ASPI support after XP, so I'm looking into setting up an XP 32-bit/Win 7 64-bit dual boot system. One of the IT guys at work mentioned the VM option too. I'm now wondering if that would be the way to go vs. dual boot? Off the top of your skull, do you know the pros/cons of each option?

Sorry, don't mean to hijack this thread. If there's a more appropriate place for this to be, please move it.

TIA

 

[Brink]

Hello Ivan, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Either option is good, but it really depends on what you want to do in XP. Having XP is great in a VM for most usage. However, if you plan on playing games in XP, then it will not be since it uses default VM drivers instead.

 

[Ivan05]

Hello Ivan, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Either option is good, but it really depends on what you want to do in XP. Having XP is great in a VM for most usage. However, if you plan on playing games in XP, then it will not be since it uses default VM drivers instead.

Nope, no games. Just as an emergency escape route so-to-speak in case I run across something besides my scanner that won't run under Win 7. I've been using Win 7 32-bit since late December 2009 and my scanner is the first thing I've found that will not work under Win 7 and I don't foresee anything else like it cropping up. At this stage of the game while migrating to Win 7 64-bit I'm not 100% certain I'll find 64-bit drivers for all my hardware, but I'm not too worried about it at this point.

So maybe the VM route is the way to go?

 

[Brink]

You can give it a go to see how you like it. Uninstalling a VM is a lot easier than a dual boot so it makes it even easier to try.

 

[Ivan05]

You can give it a go to see how you like it. Uninstalling a VM is a lot easier than a dual boot so it makes it even easier to try.

I'm thinking in that direction. As a result, I've been reading your tutorials over at sevenforums and have posted some questions on this thread:

Virtual Hard Disk - Create and Attach VHD - Page 6 - Windows 7 Forums

Since this is a Win 7 question, if you don't mind I'll direct my attention over there. If you have the time, please take a look and jump in if you don't mind. You're definitely much smarter on this than me and would greatly appreciate your help.

Oh, by the way, thanks for the warm welcome, that adds a nice touch. I noticed you do that for all your newcomers. Tells me you're a class act who appreciates his users. Nice to see that. Hope to see you over at sevenforums.

 

[rainman1962]

I know this thread has moved on to Win 7 but I cannot seem to find an answer anywhere else.

I had XP and Vista on two separate hard drives and the MountedDevices key worked great. However, my XP drive partition became corrupted and I had to reinstall XP. Now, every thing seems to be working fine again, except when I use the MountedDevices key in XP it does not hide Vista anymore and therefore my restore points are deleted. I am not sure what I can do to prevent the restore points from being deleted. Any ideas why this registry key would no longer work?

 

[Brink]

Hello Rainman, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Not sure why, but I would imagine that it's something to do with the corruption that is still affecting this somehow. Double check to make sure that you used the correct drive letter for the Vista partition as it is displayed in XP.

 

[rainman1962]

I have double, triple and quadruple checked but no joy. Not sure how the self-inflicted corruption (I did something dumb) could still be affecting the drive since I partitioned and reformatted the drive. Hmmm another one of life's mysteries.

 

[Brink]

I'm not sure why it's still seeing the Vista drive in XP using this. Try hiding the Vista hard drive letter in XP started up with the tutorial below instead to see if it that stops it for you. It's a different method but should hide it just as well.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/155795-drive-hide-unhide.html

 

[rainman1962]

Brink,

Thanks for your help with this, but simply hiding the drive does not seem to work. The restore points still are deleted. The only odd thing that I found was that when I am in XP's disk management the drive letters for Disk 0 and Disk 1 do not show up (they appear in My Computer but not in the disk management). However, when I am in Vista's disk management they show up just fine.

I do have a solution that, so far, seems to work and may help someone else if anyone else experiences this behavior. Simply go to the drive properties for the physical drive with Vista (while you are in XP) and disable the drive. Obviously this will only work if you have two physical drives with XP on one and Vista on the other. This seems to accomplish the same thing, namely preventing XP from seeing Vista and deleting the restore points. I have tested this and the restore points in Vista no longer disappear and there seems to be no negative side effects.

Just one more thing to add to the mystery. Even if I use the MountedDevices offline registry key and change the drive letter to something else, like a CD drive, XP continues to "see" the drive. So it isn't specific to just unmounting the Vista drive.

Hope this helps someone. Let me know if you can think of any downside to my work-around or if some other idea comes to mind.

 

[Brink]

Hello Rainman,

Disabling the drive will work just as well. Did removing the drive letter in Vista to where it no longer had one help any?

 

[phuocthiet]

Dear Brink & Shawn

I suggest you add one more step to your Option 2 (manual procedure):

6) Go into MountedDevices and delete all references to the hidden drive
(D: or E: or...)

Otherwise Win7 will hang dead when booting, probably because a drive cannot be
at the same time hidden and exposed. I have experienced that problem myself.

Thank you for your posting. My win 7 is safe now, although with some minor hickup
(winexplorer stops working and restarts when System is clicked, but OK after that).

 

[Brink]

Hello Phuoc Thiet, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Were you trying to hide Windows 7 from XP??

If you were just trying to hide a drive in Windows 7, then this may work better for you instead.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/155795-drive-hide-unhide.html

 

[phuocthiet]

Dear Mr/Ms Brink,

Yes, I was trying to hide my Win7 partition from WinXP so that my Restore
Points are safe from it, in my dual-boot configuration.

Your Manual procedure worked, but in the first reboot from XP, Win 7 hung and
I had to come back to Win XP registry, went into MountedDevices and deleted
all entries of the hidden drive E:. Everything was OK after that, except that
when I re-ran XP and clicked on System, Winexplorer stopped and restarted.
After that 1st time problem, everything is OK. XP sees drive E: as Offline now
and cannot access its files - and so my Restore points in Win7 are safe.

I will test your Drive Hiding prodedure when I install Win Vista in my remaining
free partition.

Thanks for your concern and quick response, but I am OK now. If you have not done it, I suggest you publish your Drive-hiding procedure on the Web so that many other people, like myself, can benefit from it.

Phuoc Thiet

 

[Brink]

Phuoc Thiet,

Thank you. I have added your findings to the tutorial so that it may help others as well.

 

[phuocthiet]

Dear Mr Brink,

It appears that there is a typing mistake in your "Hide or Undide a drive..."
procedure, Method Three, step E). It reads:

E) Go to step 5

instead of "Go to step 6".

Please fix it if I am correct. Thanks.


Phuoc Thiet,

 

[Brink]

Thank you Phuoc Thiet. It has been fixed now.

 

[brapford]

Hi

I have just installed windows 7 64bit, tried the regedit fix in the registry for Windows XP to stop XP from deleting the restore points but I am not having any joy.

I have x 3 Disks on my system a 500gb disc partioned into 5 sectors with x 2 Windows XP systems one for web browsing and another non internet XP system for running audio programmes such as Cubase. Another 80GB disc which is just a back up space and a new 1TB Dish drive

I have installed Windows 7 on a new 1TB harddrive and as a result in shows on Drive L: in Windows XP installation for My Computer. I have created the offline key in mounted devices and the then created the D-word entry \DosDevices\L: The only thing was when I created the d-word entry I did not have the option to create a 32bit value only a D-word entry in regedit. Also the offline key shows as a folder rather than the "green play" type button as show in the graphic for the tutorial.

Have tried x 3 times with no joy.

Maybe I have missed something but would appreciate anybodys input / help