Previously, there was an official Windows tool called “Steady State” which did the same exact thing, but the software was abandoned by Microsoft for some reason. Here is how you can use Reboot Restore Rx to reset your computer on every reboot.
What is Reboot Restore Rx
Reboot Restore Rx is a simple lightweight and free software that can restore your computer to an automatically predefined restore point. That way, no matter what changes the user has made to the system, including any installations and modifications, Reboot Restore will automatically reset your Computer to the baseline settings on every reboot. This is almost a perfect way to protect your PC and is particularly helpful in environments like public areas, classrooms, libraries, etc., where things can go wrong easily and frequently.
Installation and Usage
Note: Reboot Restore assumes the current state (while you are installing) of your computer as the baseline. So make sure that you have everything set up correctly on your computer before proceeding. To get started, head over to the official website of Reboot Restore Rx and download the freeware. Once downloaded, execute the file and click on the “Install” button to continue. If needed, you can change the destination folder by clicking on the “Browse” button.
Now Reboot Restore Rx will check for various things in the Windows registry. Once completed, click on the “Next” button.
In this window, select the drive(s) you want to protect and click on the “Next” button to continue. Since C:\ drive is the one that hosts all the system files and configurations, it would be the ideal choice. If you want to protect other drives, you can do so by selecting the relevant check boxes.
Now just check the settings you just configured and click on the “Next” button. Reboot Restore will also show other details like the installation folder and Access Control state.
Once the setup is completed, restart your system so that Reboot Restore can configure itself properly by installing Pre-OS Recovery Console.
From this point forward, Reboot Restore will sit quietly in the taskbar. The good thing is that, Reboot Restore requires zero configurations. In fact, there is no settings panel whatsoever to configure Reboot Restore.
Once installed properly, Reboot Restore will automatically reset your computer to the baseline settings on every reboot.
If you ever want to access the in-boot options of Reboot Restore, repeatedly press the “Home” button on your keyboard while the Reboot Restore splash screen is being displayed. If needed, you can uninstall Reboot Restore from here.
If you want to make changes to your system while using Reboot Restore, simply right click on the taskbar icon and select the option “Disable Reboot Restore Rx.” Once disabled, any changes made to your system cannot be rolled back.
If you want to remove the taskbar icon, you need to disable “shieldtray.exe” from starting up at every Windows startup. This action won’t disable the Reboot Restore program and only disables the tray icon. That’s all there is to do and it is that simple to use a simple software like Reboot Restore to automatically reset your PC settings to a predefined baseline on every reboot.
Conclusion
The bad thing about the free version of Reboot Restore is that you cannot create multiple baseline restore points, and there is no support for some critical updates like Windows Updates and AntiVirus updates. Of course, you can remove the limitations with the PRO version. Besides that, Reboot Restore is a handy little tool that does the job without hogging system resources or any other crazy configurations. Hopefully that helps, and do comment below sharing your thoughts and experiences on using this freeware.
