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So it was a surprise to discover this past week that restore can be a bad thing. If you have purchased a PC in the last year or so, you know that many companies (Compaq, in my case) no longer provide a full version of Windows with their machines. Thus, when you have a problem with corruption of files, or any situation requiring a reinstall of the operating system, you are up a bit of a creek.
If you were clever, you located the Windows files disguised in a sub directory buried deep in your system files. (This subdirectory is often called \windows\option\cabs.) You can use a utility called Winimage to corral these files and back them up onto diskettes -- 28 diskettes, in my case.
But most people don't do this. They instead use an installation method favored by many major computer makers, like Compaq -- the restore program.
As I said, it sounds nice: a program you use when your system starts acting up. It restores your setup to the way your computer was set up the day you bought it.
Computer companies like restore programs for two reasons. First, it is a no-brainer way to get users back to square one when they have scrozzled their factory configurations. Computer setups are much more complicated than they were five years ago, and the setup for one model over another, with different modems, hard drives, and other features, can be very different.
But more important, offering the restore disk means paying the minimum amount of money to Microsoft, which licenses the Windows operating system to them. Offering a CD with plain-vanilla, works-in-any-machine Windows is a $100 value, whereas a restore program designed just for one machine eliminates wanton copying of the operating system, which Microsoft hates, and costs the computer company much less in tech support time. Got a problem? Any problem at all? Run the restore disk, dummy.
But here's the catch. To go back to square zero, restore disks destroy every bit and byte of data on your computer. That's how they work. They have zero tolerance for your configuration ideas, and less love for your work.
So when I stood at the counter of my local superstore last week, after the clerk told me to run the restore program, it was like pulling the short straw on a life raft. Because data has also expanded in recent years. There was a time you could back up current work on three or four floppies. With today's 3.5 gigabyte and bigger hard drives, and the dense multimedia files that nearly every application creates, we all have way more data than we can back up easily.
"Data" means much more than the documents you create in your business or schoolwork. It means every snippet and item you download, every zipped application and plug-in you pulled down from the net. It means every incidental file you create, every phone number, game score, e-mail message, fax, init string, .ini or parameter file -- everything you can't back up with original disks.
Now, you can delve into your data and surgically mark every file you need. On my system this week that came to over 6,500 files. Or you can use a huge tape backup and backup every bit currently on your disk. Problem is, you will likely be restoring the corrupting influences that caused it to fail in the first place.
I had a "techno moment" this week at the support counter of my local superstore, when the clerk told me I had to run the restore program. I'm telling you, I would have offered a roll of bills to spare me the cup they set before me.
Back home, I spent two days backing up my system onto 14 100-meg Zip disks -- the equivalent of 971 1.44 meg floppies. When I finally slid the restore disk into the slot I crossed my fingers. It promptly swept away my data, blinked about eighty times, then crashed. (Compaq did not explain that the program must sit inactive for 40 minutes, then it suddenly springs to life again.)
In fact, my restoration neither solved the problem I had, nor satisfactorily restored Windows to its original condition. Programs that once worked, like Compaq's video player, no longer work. Programs which every Windows user in the world has, like Calculator, have vanished. I can't fax or reliably transmit data. I crash several times a day.
I called Compaq. The solution to these problems? It's just this side of insanity: run the restore program again.
It's too late for me, but not for you. Before you buy a system, ask yourself: in what way is it to the customer's advantage that the only available system repair annihilates every scrap of information you used the computer to accumulate?
Then, when you see the word restore, run far away. x
Michael Finley is co-author with Harvey Robbins of Why Change Doesn't Work.Visit Michael Finley at his home page, or e-mail him at mfinley@mfinley.com 
To contact Mike Finley ...
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