System Restore (SR) comes part and parcel with Windows ME and what a gem! Yes, needing a minimum of 200mb is a bit of pain if you're running low on disk space but personally I feel it's a small price to pay considering the many advantages. Basically what SR does is cover your butt in the nicest possible way by doing a 'backup' of your system files (.exe .vxd .dll .com .sys) and registry so that should anything go wrong, either with a wonky download or manual changes that you've made, it'll roll your system back to before the problem showed up! Unless you're desperately short of disk I wouldn't recommend disabling it...

Note:

DON'T use System Restore as a 'backup' program or to uninstall software! SR is a safety net not a backup utility so you'll still need a to save all your hard work as per usual and use a program like [Add/Remove Pro] to uninstall any software you don't want.

System Restore will stop working if you don't have enough free disk space (200mb min) If this happens you'll need to free up some space, once that's done SR will kick back in and be fully functioning again.

By default System Restore sets aside 12% of your disk space (for hard drives 4gb and less the max is 400mb)Is this enough? Is it too little? It really does depend on what you're trying to protect. Always Keep in the back of your mind that SR uses a FIFO (First In First Out) system so keep an eye on what your doing and allocate additional space if needed. Remember that once you've reach 90% of the allocated space SR will start to dump the oldest restore points until it reaches 50%

System Restore CAN be used Safe Mode Contray to what you may have heard (and boy we've heard some tales!) if you've come a cropper then you can in fact boot your system to [Safe Mode], access SR and roll your system back.

When you roll your system back any programs you have downloaded and installed will be removed. That's the whole point of it isn't it! But sometimes there's programs that you've yet to install or want to keep... here's how to save them. The easiest way is to move them to either your My Documents, Temporary Internet files, Internet Explorer History, Cookies, Favorites folders or the Recycle Bin as SR doesn't monitor these folders. SR also doesn't monitor any files with a .txt .doc .xls extensions so you can safely rename your downloads to any of the above file extensions, then simply rename them back to their original one after SR is complete eg if you had a download called bourbon.exe you'd rename it to bourbon.txt then rename it back to bourbon.exe after SR has done it's stuff.

Link..
[Q290700] Patch for System Restore
"Checkpoints That You Create After September 8, 2001 Do Not Restore Your Computer" (thanks to Charles for recommending the link)

The How To's of System Restore...

NOTE: We get a lot of queries from people who have trapped a VIRUS in SR. To get rid of this you'll need to dump the entire contents of SR folder. Follow the instructions below for how to disable SR, restart your computer, run your virus scanner and once you've had the all the clear follow the instructions for Enable System Restore.

Disable System Restore
(System Restore is enabled by default)
Right Click My Computer
Select Properties
Select the Performance tab
Click File System
Select the Troubleshooting tab
Click the check box beside Disable System Restore
Hit OK
Hit OK
When you're prompted, restart your computer

To Enable System Resore
Right Click My Computer
Select Properties
Select the Performance tab
Click File System
Select the Troubleshooting tab
Click the check box beside Disable System Restore to remove the tick
Hit OK
Hit OK
When you're prompted, restart your computer

Increase/Decrease space for System Restore
Right Click My Computer
Select Properties
Select the Performance tab
Click File System
Select Hard Disk Tab
Under Settings, System Restore disk space use, move the slider to the right to allocate more space (to the left to decrease)
Hit Apply (you have to do this, don't skip it)
Hit OK

To create a restore point
On the TaskBar click Start
Select Programs
Select Accessories
Select System Tools
Select System Restore
Click Create a restore point
Hit Next
Type in the name you want to use (if your getting ready to insall software then use something like "before installation")
Hit Next
Hit OK

Restore your Computer
TIP! Close ALL open programs first!
Click Start
Select Programs
Select Accessories
Select System Tools
Click System Restore
Select Restore my computer to an earlier time
Hit Next
From the Choose a Restore Point calendar select the date/restore point you wish to roll your computer back to Hit Next You'll see a prompt to tell you to make sure all programs are closed, hit OK
Hit Next and you're away! Once finished you're computer will restart and all should be aok. If the problem hasn't been fixed then try choosing an earlier restore point.

Undo a Restoration
TIP! Close ALL open programs first!
Click Start
Select Programs
Select Accessories
Select System Tools
Click System Restore
Click Undo my last restoration
Hit Next
Make sure all programs are closed
Follow prompts

System Restore Information
C:\Windows\System\Restore (program)
C:\_Restore (Data Store/Information)

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