PowerShell Handles Windows 10 Restore Points
In 2017 I wrote a post entitled “Win10 Volume Shadow Copies May Need Cleanup.” I’ve just learned that useful PowerShell cmdlets do likewise. They provide analogs to various VSSADMIN command line functions. In fact, PowerShell handles Windows 10 Restore Points nicely. Plus, the reporting side of things is simpler and easier to understand. Let me illustrate, by comparing two similar sets of command output. Look at VSSADMIN list shadows versus Get-ComputerRestorePoint
Not only is the PowerShell output more compact (one line versus 10 per entry), it’s also a LOT easier to suss out!
[Click image for full-sized view.]
Because PowerShell Handles Windows 10 Restore Points Nicely, Use It!
There is some debate nowadays whether or not Restore Points are worth acquiring and using. One school of thought avers that it’s better to make regular image backups, and rely on those instead. Another school of thought asserts that Restore Points are worth trying as an early step in recovering from OS issues. Personally, I make a daily image backup of my production machines, and weekly backups of all other machines. I also enable Restore Points for the OS drive on all of my Windows PCs. Does this make me wishy-washy? I don’t think so. When it comes to protecting my desktop PCs, I prefer to regard this as more of a “belt and suspenders” approach to protection. In that same vein, I’ll also observe that I backup my production systems into the cloud once a week, and other systems likewise once a month, for additional coverage off-site.
Restore Point Related PowerShell Commands at MS DOCS
For more information about the afore-cited Get-ComputerRestorePoint and related cmdlets, check out these MS DOCS links:
Get-ComputerRestorePoint
Checkpoint-Computer
Disable-ComputerRestore
Enable-ComputerRestore
Restart-Computer
Restore-Computer
Good stuff, all the way around. Slowly but surely I’m trying to migrate my Windows 10 command line smarts into PowerShell. Hopefully, these posts of mine will help others do the same. Cheers!