GoBack can rescue your computer from deletions
By MIKE BERMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
September 03, 2003

If you want to maintain your sanity don't - and I repeat D-O-N-(apostrophe)-T - uninstall software from your PC without making sure it can be accomplished with a minimum of frustration.

Case in point:

I, being the overconfident computer nerd, made the mistake of uninstalling my copy of Roxio Easy CD/DVD Creator 6, not realizing the whirlpool of misery it would create.

My DVD writer - gone!

My DVD-ROM drive - gone!

My CD writer - gone!

Where'd they go? A quick check of my system showed that one of the drivers Windows XP needs to recognize these drives had been removed.

A visit to Roxio's Web site proved to be of little help (although it did tell me how to restore the drives if they disappeared AFTER the program was installed).

So, after the waves of anxiety, frustration and the overcoming need to kick my PC disappeared, I realized that all was not lost.

It seems that the folks that set up my test computer - an eMachines 1800 - had linked that driver to an earlier version of the Roxio software to override XP's CD writing utility, not thinking that anyone would ever want to use another product and need to uninstall CD Creator.

Fortunately, a product Roxio recently licensed to Symantec came to the rescue. GoBack 3 ($29.95), which should be a required utility on every PC, enabled me to restore my computer to a point before I unwittingly performed the dastardly deed.

GoBack has been around since the mid 1990s and has constantly outperformed its imitators, by monitoring and marking every change you make in your computer's configuration, setting up rollback points that allow you to revert to a time before you screwed up your PC.

Among its key features are:

• File Rescue, which instantly restores files that have been changed.
• You can select from a short list of restore points.
• You can password-protect GoBack, blocking access to your hard drive restoration privileges.

A lite version of the product is included with Symantec Norton SystemWorks 2003 ($69.95), another essential product from Symantec that includes Norton AntiVirus, Norton CleanSweep and Norton Utilities.

Additional information on these products can be found at www.symantec.com.

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