System Restore is a vital feature that protects your Windows system. If you ever damage Windows and need to go back in time, System Restore lets you undo changes and return to a previous state.

You probably know how to create a restore point manually. But what if you tweak your PC regularly and would like more restore points? Getting caught without one is no fun, so you should set them to run on a schedule.

How to Create Daily System Restore Points in Windows

If you use a Professional version of Windows, perform the following steps using Group Policy:

  1. Search for gpedit.msc in the Start Menu to open the Group Policy Editor.
  2. Drill down to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Defender Antivirus > Scan.
  3. Double-click the Create a system restore point entry.
  4. Choose Enabled and click OK.

For Home users, follow these steps to make changes to the Registry. Remember that editing the Registry can be dangerous if you're not careful:

  1. Type regedit into the Start Menu and open the Registry Editor.
  2. Navigate to the following location:
                HKEYLOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows Defender
        
  3. Right-click on Windows Defender in the left sidebar and choose New > Key. Name it Scan.
  4. Then right-click in the right panel of Scan, and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name it DisableRestorePoint.
  5. This value will have a value of 0, which is what you want. Close the Registry Editor, and after you reboot you'll be all set.

Now when Windows Defender does its daily scan, it will first create a system restore point. Even if you use another antivirus, Windows Defender can still scan occasionally. Open the Windows Defender Security Center app on your PC to toggle this on. If you don't want to use this method, more advanced users can use the Task Scheduler.

Note that System Restore uses a fair amount of space, so you should check how much space you have allocated for this feature. You might end up creating too many restore points in a short time, reducing their usefulness.

Do you like having restore points created automatically, or are you OK with making them manually? Tell us in the comments!