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How can I start the System Restore Tool from the Windows XP command prompt?
John Savill
June 5, 2002
1 Min Read
A. The System Restore Tool is useful for restoring your system to an earlier state. However, you can't start the System Restore Tool from the Recovery Console, and you might be unable to boot your machine as normal or access the System Restore Tool in safe mode. To access the System Restore Tool in these situations, perform the following steps to modify the Windows Explorer shell to use the old Program Manager (progman.exe) shell from Windows NT 3.51:
Start the computer in Safe Mode with Command Prompt.
Log on as an administrator.
At the command prompt, type
regeditto open a registry editor.
Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon subkey.
Modify the Shell entry to "progman.exe" (don't type the quotes), then press Enter.
Close the registry editor.
At the command prompt, type
shutdown -rto reboot the machine.
After the system reboots, log on as an administrator; the Program Manager shell will start.
From the File menu, select Run and enter
c:windowssystem32restorerstrui.exeto start the System Restore Tool.
Restore the system as normal. You won't need to set the shell back to Windows Explorer because the act of restoring the system state to an earlier point will accomplish this task.
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