System Restore blank page

you appear to have an infection, run a full scan with malwarebytes free, and with your antivirus, until both run clean, and see if that has cleared the issue.

Thanks, but have already tried that.

System restore reinstallation from José Ibarra

Here are my usual directions for how to reinstall System Restore:

If you have already run MBAM and SAS, temporarily disabled your antivirus and antimalware applications and tried your System Restore in Safe Mode and you still can't get System Restore to work, you should just reinstall your System Restore.  You do not have to reinstall XP - just reinstall the System Restore part.

System Restore is a frequent target for malicious software attacks.

When you reinstall System Restore, all of your current Restore Points will be removed and you must restart your computer when the installation is complete.  After the restart, one new Restore Point will automatically be created as a new System Checkpoint in your SR calendar.

If your system had a malicious software infection, it could be that some of the files in your old Restore Points are also infected so wiping out the old ones and starting fresh is often a good idea so you don't wonder if the old Restore Points are infected or not.

Assuming your XP is installed on the C drive of your machine:

As you go through the reinstallation of SR, the reinstallation will ask you for some files as you go along and ask for your XP installation CD.   If you do not have a genuine bootable XP installation CD, you can change the path of where the installer looks for files one at a time as they are needed.  More on that later.

Navigate to the following folder:

c:\windows\inf

Locate and right click the following file:

sr.inf

Choose Install

If you have cannot see the sr.inf file, configure your system to show hidden files and to show file extensions. 

Click Tools, Folder Options, View and enable "Show hidden files and folders" and uncheck "Hide file extensions for known file types" then you should be able to see the c:\windows\inf\sr.inf file.

The installation may ask for files from the c:\windows\inf\386 folder.  That would be your genuine bootable XP installation CD if you have one and the Service Pack installed on your system needs to be the same as the CD you are going to use. 

You do not absolutely need a CD to do the reinstall since the files must already be on your system some place if SR was ever working before.

If you are asked for a file and you can't find it where I suggest in my example below (it works on my system), you will have to search your hard disk and find where the files are on your system. 

If asked for a file and you don't know where it is, leave the installation waiting and click Start, Search and search for the

requested file and find it on your system.  If SR ever worked before, the file is already on your system somewhere. 

When Search finds the requested file, switch back to the installation and enter the path to where you found the requested file and click OK.  The installation may ask for several files along the way, but you can find them all.

Here is how my system works when I reinstall SR when I pretend I do not have a genuine bootable XP installation CD:

When asked for:

sr.sys

Point the install to c:\windows\system32\drivers

When asked for:

srclient.dll

Point the install to c:\windows\system32

When asked for:

filelist.xml

Point the install to c:\windows\system32\restore (or c:\windows\ServicePackFiles\i386)

When asked for:

srframe.mmf

Point the install to c:\windows\system32\dllcache (or c:\windows\system32\restore)

When the installation completes, you will get a message that you need to restart your computer.

Restart your computer and look at your SR calendar.  You should have one new System Checkpoint in your calendar.

When you get SR working again, I would run MBAM and SAS to be sure your system is reasonably clean of malicious software.

The day you think you need System Restore to help you is not the day to find out System Restore doesn't work, so you should test it.

After the reinstallation, manually create a Restore Point and test the restoration process and be sure you are convinced it works from end to end.

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System Restore check

Create a new restore point named TEST.

Create a new shortcut on the desktop and point it to My Computer or any other file of your choice and name it TEST.

Now restore to the Test restore point.

The system will now reboot, and you will receive a message if the restore was successful, and the Test shortcut on the desktop will be gone.

 Note: This should be conducted on a regular basis. Once a month should do. Or if the system has been subject to virus or malware/spyware infection but only after the system has been fully cleaned.

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Open Explorer and go to the Windows\Inf folder. Locate the srchasst.inf file. Right click it and select Install. You'll need your XP CD or the files from the I386 folder. (This fix will require you to have your Win XP CD).

unhide system file in Folder Options so you will see the inf folder and also open the dll cache folder and when you are asked for a file you should be able to redirect the path to the dll cache as a copy of the required dll's should be in the cache.

No-one else experienced this or know the answer?

you appear to have an infection, run a full scan with malwarebytes free, and with your antivirus, until both run clean, and see if that has cleared the issue.