My friends (a couple) recently purchased a new Dell computer with XP Home Edition installed. When I worked on their computer recently (getting rid of spyware), I noticed that the System Restore option is non-functional on the computer, though C drive Monitoring has been active (since the 'puter was set up in their home).

No matter what checkpoint I tried using as the restoration point, it wouldn't work.

Is there some type proprietary rights that Dell 'puters have that would have caused this?

shouldn't matter that its a dell. I assume you're clicking on highlighted dates in the calendar, so I'd double check the alloted space for backups on the monitoring tab, make sure the system restore service is running and set on automatic, if she has service pack 2, make sure (slim chance) DEP on the advanced tab of system properties>performance>settings > data execution properties hasn't added the service.....

boot to safe mode and try to run restore from there. Other than that, I can't think of anything, or than corrupt restore points. Delete them all and create a new one and try to run it.

here's some more xp sys restore troubleshooting tips for M$

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302796

Affirmative, Dorry .

I'm versed in doing restore, and did click on the dates that appear as valid checkpoints on the 'puter. But, that doesn't work. It goes through the stages of appearing to do a restore, yet on reboot it states that it was unsuccessful in restoration.

Space allocated is fine, too.

The rest will have to be done by my friends; their in NV and I'm in CA.

Thank you for the suggestions, Dorry, and also for the link. I'll pass along the ideas you've offered and see what happens.

good luck with it. I've had it happen to me before and ended up reformatting it to fix it, among other probs at the time. Being a new computer, one of those fixes should work, unless Dell loaded a corrupt image (unlikely).

is this system restore something i should be doing something about?