Windows Backup and Restore on Vista

This is a shout out to my homies on the Vista Backup and Restore Center Team (if such a team exists). I never would have believed it would work so well, and it did.

I am running Vista + Mac OS X with Boot Camp. I installed VS 2008 Architecture Edition Monday only to learn that edition of Visual Studio doesn’t support unit testing. Of course I wanted it off, but uninstall Visual Studio? You might as well reinstall the OS for all the goo VS seems typically leaves behind.

Luckily, I created a restore point before installing VS2008 in anticipation of something not working out well (oh me of little faith). One does that easily enough:

1. Start > Backup and Restore Center
2. Select the "Create a Restore Point" in the side menu.

   

3. This gives you dialog allowing you select the drive you want to create a restore point for.
4. Install Visual Studio 2008 for Architects Edition
5. Start > Backup and Restore Center
6. At the bottom of the screen select:
   
7. Select the "Choose a restore point" option and get the dialog showing all of your restore points.
   
8. Click next and pray.
9. Go eat dinner.
10. Come back after dinner and login. It’s bloody magic!
11. Install Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite.
12. Blog about it.