OK, I remember it now. But it’s not that they are locked. I have a unlocking utility & if I could get to them maybe unlocking & then deleting would work. If I knew where they were & are accessible, could do that. What I think is happening is this; Those old restore points were made automatically at the time I made the system images. Those restore points don’t want to disappear unless they’re removed by going though Win Backup & they find their old linkage w/ those backups that made them. I remember that there is a box that asks you if you want to delete or overwrite a particular dated backup. However, I didn’t delete those backups from the backup program, but rather through Windows Explorer or just trashed the USB drives they were on. Yup...been there & done ALL the published solutions, shut down Sys Restore, decreased the size, used disk cleanup, used other utilities...etc.....etc... See above for why I think they don't want to leave the comforts of where ever they call home. I actually have this problem on 2 separate computers, both running win7 Pro x64. I haven't seen any reference to anyone else having the Identical issue.