Daily checkpoints not being taken

Hi Folks,
A friend of mine who has a Dell Inspiron 530 (Core 2 duo processor, 2 GB ram, WinXP Pro)
which he has only had since Christmas.
He has not any any problems until he installed an old Win98 program and it hung up the system. He tried to uninstall it, using add/remove programs but it said the program wasn't there.
Anyway, I said don't worry, just roll back your system to yesterday or any good restore point.
On going to System Restore, no checkpoints had been taken prior to that date, even though he had System Restore turned on and plenty of space allocated.
He also has Automatic updates on, but the only update showing (and a checkpoint) was for an AVG antivirus update about half an hour before I got there.
So what could stop daily checkpoints being taken?
Regards.

Check that System Restore is started and set to automatic under Admin Tools > Services

Also reset it by stopping then restarting under My Computer > Properties > Sys Restore

Also try to take a manual point.


As to removing the program:

Remove Programs
--------------------------------------------------
Uninstall Programs Manually

Just because Windows XP has the Add/Remove Programs feature it doesn't mean your application will appear in the list. Furthermore, even if it does appear, it's no guarantee that the uninstall feature will work. When you run across one of these situations the items listed below will help in getting rid of the application. Be aware that these steps may not remove everything associated with the application and can impact other applications on the computer. Have a backup or restore point and use caution.

*

Find the directory for the application and delete all the files in the directory. Delete the directory. e.g. click C: under My Computer then Program Files etc.
*

Open regedit (start/run regedit) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE and find the folder for the application. Delete the folder.
*

Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE and find the folder for the application. Delete the folder.
*

To remove the application entry from Add/Remove Programs (if present) open regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Uninstall and find the folder for the application. Delete the folder.
*

Some applications have Services attached to them. If this is the case, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Servic es, locate and delete the service.
*

In Windows Explorer, navigate to the individual user settings and delete program references. Common places to check would be:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs and delete relevant entries.
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup and delete relevant entries.
C:\Documents and Settings\%YourUserID%\Start Menu\Programs and delete relevant entries.
[Do this for each User ID listed]
C:\Documents and Settings\%YourUserID%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup and delete relevant entries.
[Do this for each User ID listed]

If no entries were found in the previous step and the application launches automatically, navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows
and delete the entry.

Hi Jephree,
Many thanks for the comprehensive reply.
I'm going over to see my colleague tomorrow so will try the things you've suggested and report back,
Thanks again.

Hi Jephree,
Went over to my colleague's house and checked everything out on the System Restore front.
All settings were correct but there were still no restore points since my last visit. I tried creating a manual restore point worked OK. I double-checked and all was fine.
Also Windows updates had not been applied even though he was set to "Automatic Updates".
I asked him if he had cancelled any updates because he was busy doing something else, but he said no.
I then asked him to go through a typical day of events on his PC and this is what he said:
"I switch on about 8am and check my e-mail, I do about 4 hours work, then I switch off."
What can I say!!!!!!
(He now understands that updates and checkpoints don't happen when you're busy or switched off..'..I think!!)
Thanks again,
Regards.