PROPERLY disabling system restore on Win7x64 OOBE

[hydroeon]

Greetings fellow MSFN-ers!!!

After many hours of searching; I'm stuck!

I seek to properly disable system restore i.e. delete any relevant files and fully disable system restore only (not by shadow copy workarounds etc) on first boot through OOBE.

Obviously, a reg entry, batch command or whatnot is preferred to launching that system restore settings window in the above scenario.

However, the issue is that ALL of the 'solutions' I've found simply don't work e.g. there is no such thing as a system restore service, a reg entry under policies (WinNT section) etc and yet the service (whatever it actually is) is certainly live and kicking!

I would like to refrain from modifying the .wim file to achieve this and am hoping that there is a real working solution for this issue.

If this is a secret service to disable and you know how to do it then tell me; I won't tell anyone else!

[Tripredacus]

Have you tried DisableSR?

[hydroeon]

I've not tried that but according to M$ it's not compatible with Windows 7 x64.

Also, it states that "This limits the ongoing usefulness of System Restore on the computer." - implying that the files won't actually be deleted nor is the system restore would be disabled completely.

Thanks for the input though.

Am I the only one who thinks system restore is an utter waste of space!? (I backup frequently and can restore entire systems from SSDs in about 4 min ~40GB uncompressed, I've only tried to use it once years ago when I didn't know much about backup and the thing never worked anyway )

[ricktendo]

Where did you read that?

I use it in my autounattend.xml to disable it and I use Win7x64 and it works just fine

[hydroeon]

If DisableSR does indeed work properly then this is exciting news.

M$ DisableSR compatibility matrix? - My link

And also:

<DisableSR>1</DisableSR> - "This limits the ongoing usefulness of System Restore on the computer." - My link

So I'm guessing that while it won't actually delete anything it'll disable it from ALL drives (and not set it to manual)?

What service is it though!? I mean why isn't there a setting within windows without going through the GUI?

Any help greatly appreciated!

PS - Where do I need to place the "<DisableSR>1</DisableSR>" ? In the OOBE or Deployment!?

Edited June 1, 2011 by Tripredacus
wrapped links, pesky technet.

[hydroeon]

YES!!!!! AWESOME!!! it worked first time!!!!

Still interested in a reg/batch way of doing this too but at least I can now do it in one unattended way!

Thank you everyone for your help!

Now..... only sound and gadgets are left before deployment.... should probably start a new post though (just need to install some OOBE gadgets from cmd and disable startup audio sound and set the default windows sounds to "no sounds".

[Tripredacus]

Yeah sorry I usually link to the Vista definition on TechNet. For some reason it always comes up first on the search results, but it only links to the Vista info. That's why Win7 didn't appear in the matrix. But Vista and 7 use 98% of the same Unattend values, I just keep it simple on myself.

Check here for a starter on Gadgets.

Edited June 1, 2011 by Tripredacus