I would appreciate someone explaining what WinXP System Restore does as compared to Win98 Registry Backup.  Does it do more than back up the registry which is implied by its name?  

I have been a comfortable user of Win98 for many years and have had occasion to rescue my systems from all sorts of upsets.  Most of these can be fixed by going back to an earlier registry using the command Scanreg /Restore in DOS mode.  

However Win XP does not seem to work this way.  I have had to re-install XP at least once because -- 1) I had not set up a 'restore point' before doing the deed that brought the system down and, 2) I could not find any system originated 'restore point' comparable to Win98’s automatic registry backup performed every morning, and could not even find the XP backup registry files (I know they were in there somewhere!).  I even had set up the XP Recovery Console which is a very involved process that requires a number of security tweaks in a working install of XP before it can be completely enabled.  Recovery Console is a trip down memory lane for anyone who remembers DOS ver 1.0 in its limited command functions.  I have not been able to find a Recovery Console command equivalent to Scanreg /Restore that would have been a big help.  

   WinXP Restore Points do backup the registry but they also keep track of changes that have been made to the computer too.  So if you restore a Restore Point you just may find out that it has undone some of your work (I was not too happy when it did this to me).  I don't think that WinXP has a way of restoring Restore Points outside of Windows.  WinXP also has a tendency to delete all of the Restore Points when it wants to (like after reinstalling Windows).
   Recovery Console is worse than DOS.  It has far fewer commands and restrict where you can go on the harddrive in an effort to protect you from ruining things (which also keeps you from restoring things).
   Our XP Recovery CD Maker (http://www.xp-recovery-cd.com) makes a boot CD which will restore just the registry part of Restore Points and WinRescue backups from outside of Windows.  Please make a CD in trial version first before purchasing because XP Recovery CD Maker uses BartPE which does not work in all installations of WinXP.

I think at one point in my setup of XP I tried something like BartPE which did not work and got help from MS to finish setting up Recovery Console (they gave me a disk for this).  

So now that you confirm that Recovery Console is not very friendly (or useful), I will stay with Win98 as my primary OS for as long as I can and then maybe make my next computer an Apple.

Thank you.

   Our XP Recovery CD is much easier to use than the Recovery Console and much easier than Win98 DOS.  It is like running Windows.
   Once you get a CD made, it will work for any computer running WinXP or Win2000 at any time.  Just insert the CD and start your computer.

OK.  I have just purchased and downloaded the registered version.  I will let you know how it works out.