System Restore is no longer available.

Thanks for your response. I will answer here to you and Bikesh T.

My laptop is of make Packard Bell about 5 - 6 years old. OS is XP Pro service pack 3. I have Avast antivirus and do the antivirus and spyware checks every weekend. I;ve not had any virus or spyware problems.

I've not made any changes to the computer recently. I do not have the original OS and Office disks anymore. In the yearly home spring cleanings, someone must have thrown them away.

To Joselbarra's reply, srsvc.dll is there, traced as you instructed. I do agree with you that doing the diskcheck does not apply to this problem, but I do know that there is no problem there as per the check done last week. My SR problem is more than a month old.

Hi Joselbarra

Thanks for your reply. I did the spyware and antivirus checks again as you instructed, even though I had done them last week. Antivirus stated no threats found, and only superantispyware showed a few of the normal ordinary low level adware tracking cookies. I do these checks every weekend.

Avast is always the first thing I ever install, to be protected first and foremost before going to anything else. SR had been working OK, and went down just about a month ago.

Your options given are encouraging, and I would like to try to reinstall SR. As I'm not that good on computers, I would appreciate your instructions step by step.

Thanks

It just so happens that I have some instructions for that.

If during the SR reinstall, you seem to be missing some file it wants, just abort the installation, tell us what the file you need is, and I can put it on my SkyDrive and you can download it. 

If SR used to work, the files would be on your system somewhere so you might just search your system to find them, and then just "point" the install to the folder where the file is.

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.

Browse to c:\windows\inf 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 SR 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.

If you still can't find the files, let us know what the file is you need and somebody can upload it to their SkyDrive and you can download it.

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)

If asked for:

xrstrui.exe

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

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.

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, reboot and immediately test the restoration process and be sure you are convinced it works from end to end.

Hi Joselbarra

Sorry for the delay. Went away for the weekend. I did get a little apprehensive at your instructions, not being that good on computers and I've never done such a thing before. However, if you'll bear with me, I think it is well worth doing and learning.

Being still a bit confused pls enlighten me the following:

1.  How do I start? What is the first step, the second, and then the third.

2.  No need to repeat what has already been said, just point to it.

3.   How do I abort if I can't find the file, without messing things up, and be able to continue using the computer as usual? Then I should write to you on the file I can't find, and pls tell me what to do from there, how to import it, etc 

Thanks