Re: Norton Go Back vs Win XP System Restore

From: *Vanguard* (reply-to-newsgroup_at_do-not-email.invalid)
Date: 07/01/04 

Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 11:54:58 -0500

ECLiPSE 2002 said in news:75p6e011fh1nadelee6qarhqhmjiumho5g@4ax.com:
> I have read numerous articles about the merits of the recovery
> utility Go Back. Win XP has a system restore utility built in.
> Can someone explain what the basic differences are and what
> features/advantages Go Back has vs System Restore.
>
> Thanks for any insights,
>
> Mary

System Restore monitors installs and lets you revert to a state before
the install or change. GoBack usurps the bootstrap program in the MBR
(master boot record) on the first physical hard disk found by the BIOS,
so Goback is far more pervasive (or invasive) to your system as it can
affect any OS installed in any partition. As such, GoBack displaces the
standard bootstrap program or anything else that also wants to usurp the
bootstrap code in the MBR, like disk overlay managers (for an old BIOS
that doesn't support large capacity drives), like Ontrack's or Maxtor's
utilities, boot managers, like Bootmagic, some security products, like
SafeBoot, that provide encryption security before the OS even loads, or
anything else that wants to become the bootstrap program. That means
you must make a choice between these mutually exclusive utilities. I
hear SafeBoot will move the current bootstrap code, usurp the MBR for
its bootstrap code, and then chain to the moved old bootstrap code (so
it is not mutually exclusive with anything currently in the bootstrap
code portion of the MBR). GoBack doesn't do this so it is mutually
exclusive of everything if it is the last MBR-usurping utility
installed.

I realize "backups" is an alien concept to most consumer-grade computer
users. But if you perform regular backups (file backups for logical
recovery and disk images for physical disaster recovery), especially
before performing some major surgery, like adding or changing hardware
or installing a major or invasive program, and along with using System
Restore, then you really don't need GoBack.

GoBack is useful to those users that are too lazy to perform backups and
tries to automatically cover their butts. Obviously the GoBack restore
information has to go somewhere. If it supports removable media, like
CD-Rs, then what would be the point of using it since you could then
perform a disk image yourself? If you have multiple disk drives then
obviously the safe method would be for GoBack to save its restore data
on a physical drive different than for the partition that it is
recording the changes; otherwise, if the hard drive goes bad with
defective sectors or dies then so, too, does all your Goback restore
data. If GoBack is saving its restore data within the same partition
(i.e., on the same drive) as for the partition it is recording then its
restore data is just at risk as any other file in that partition or on
that same drive. At that point, just use System Restore instead of
GoBack.

According to
http://www.winnetmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=22945, System
Restore will NOT let you recover document files but GoBack supposedly
monitors and records incremental change data for all disk activity
(which would presumably mean GoBack usurps more resources and will
probably get more in your way of using your computer). Well, guess what
is the purpose of the NT Backup utility. File versioning is a mainframe
concept yet to filter down into consumer-grade operating systems, like
Windows. You can read a test lab report of GoBack at
http://www.etestinglabs.com/clients/reports/roxio/default.asp?visitor=X.
Roxio has since sold off Goback to software predator Symantec. Also,
the report compares GoBack against Windows ME's System Restore (among
other products) rather than against Windows XP's System Restore. If you
look at the table at

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/evaluation/whyupgrade/featurecomp.mspx

supposedly Microsoft improved System Restore in Windows XP over what was
provided in Windows ME, and although

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/app_system_restore_hss_understand.mspx
and
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/faqsrwxp.mspx

describe System Restore in Windows XP, I don't know what the
improvements would be other than I hear System Restore is less a
resource hog under Windows XP than under Windows ME.

Since System Restore comes free with Windows XP, and since you have NT
Backup for document backups (yes, you can even get it for Windows XP
Home off its CD or from
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/software/ntbackup.msi), why waste the
money on GoBack? 

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