System Protection, which was introduced as System Restore in Windows Me, is a very useful feature which exists in all modern versions of Windows and allows you to have a snapshot of important system files, installed apps and registry settings. If something goes wrong, you can use this feature to restore your PC to a working state. In Windows 8.1, System Protection is turned on by default for the drive that Windows is installed on. If you don't use it, you can turn it off. Alternatively, you can adjust the amount of disk space used by System Protection.
- Open System Properties. The best way to open it is via the Power User menu. Just press Win + X shortcut keys together on the keyboard and pick the "System" item:
- The System window will appear on the screen. Click the System Protection link on the left.
- In the dialog that appears next, you will see a list of drives on your PC and the state of the System Protection feature for each drive. By default, it is enabled for the system drive and disabled for all other drives. Select the desired drive and click the "Configure" button.
- System Protection settings for the selected drive will open. Here, you can enable or disable the System Protection feature:
Select the Turn on system protection option to enable System Protection. To disable it completely for the selected drive, select the the Disable System Protection option. - To adjust the disk space usage, change the Max Usage slider position to the amount of space you want to allocate for System Protection on the selected drive:
That's it. Now you know how to configure the disk space used by System Protection or turn off the System Protection feature completely. If System Protection takes a lot of space on your drives after configuring it you can run Disk Cleanup in system files mode directly to regularly clean up the space used by restore points.
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