Norton GoBack

http://www.symantec.com/goback/

The Power to Undo PC Problems

GoBack® 3 Deluxe is a leading and comprehensive rollback utility. Once installed, it works transparently and continuously, tracking every move a PC user makes that affects the hard disk. This continuous tracking provides up-to-the-minute protection of the operating system, applications and data files and allows you to recreate the content of your hard disk as it was at virtually any moment in recent history - five minutes, five hours, even five days ago.

So, I don't have to do anything once it's installed?

Norton Go Back
"Norton GoBack continually monitors all hard disk activity, and when it determines that nothing has beeen written to the disk for several seconds, it makes a note - called a safe point - in its log.

"When you want to revert uour hard disk to a past date and time, Norton GoBack lets you select from a set of safe points because you generally wouldn't want to choose a time when you were in the middle of saving a file." - SystemWorks 2004 User's Guide, p 142

"Norton GoBack automatically runs whenever you start your computer. If a problem occurs, you can select from a series of safe points so that your hard disk reverts to a previous date and time before the problem occurred" - SystemWorks 2004 User's Guide p 143

I have used the more advanced version, Roxio GoBack, for several years, and found it very helpful. I plan to reinstall it, as I find that the similar function in Windows XP Home isn't all that great.

I certainly wouldn't like to be without a good system restore of some kind.