I have a small dilemma: let's assume that I have a folder which last previous version is dated 27th January and my last system restoration point had been created before the day, let's say 25th January. Question is: if I restored my system to 25th January, would I lose the previous version of the mentioned folder (27th Jan)?
Thanks in advance for your help :)
Windows System Restore is not a file backup utility. It is an OS repair function.
System Restore does not backup data files. It saves the state of the OS and certain application files and settings, and allows these to be restored.
Contents of your My Documents directory are not affected by System Restore.
No. System Restore and Previous Versions work independently of each other. While they both leverage the same Volume Snapshot (VSS) technology to achieve their functionality, reverting a system's state to a prior Restore Point does not remove any snapshots (a.k.a. Shadow Copies, a.k.a. Previous Versions) that may be available for the volume.
One possible exception would be if you are low on disk space or if the shadow copy storage space allocated for Previous Versions is near it's limit. While I haven't witnessed this, it's possible that running a System Restore operation could temporarily consume enough disk space to trigger deletion of one or more of the shadow copies used to store the Previous Versions. When in doubt, always have backups of important files before attempting operations that could lead to data loss.
That said, you may be over-estimating the finality of a System Restore operation. They only affect files deemed part of the system's "configuration" (e.g. the Registry, contents of critical system folders and program files, etc.) but leave all other files unchanged. Further, they are completely reversible; you can actually undo a restore operation and return the system to the original (chronologically most recent) configuration as easily as you can revert to an older restore point.
