Restoring Windows system state

The Windows system state contains the components necessary to recover the individual system without data or applications. Server access, file shares, Active Directory, Certificate Services, Clustering, Registry, DHCP, and IIS are a few components that are included in the system state backup. When recovering an entire server for DR or testing, the system state is a key component to the recovery process.

Getting ready

For this recipe, we will be using a server configured for backups, similar to the Configuring backup policies recipe, and that has successfully completed at least one system state backup.

How to do it...

1. Identify the backup set.

   Get-WBBackupSet
   $myBackup = Get-WBBackupSet | `
   Where-Object VersionId -eq 03/03/2013-19:31

2. Initiate the system state restore.

   Start-WBSystemStateRecovery -BackupSet $myBackup 

   When executed, the system state will restore as follows:

   

3. Select Y to reboot the system.

How it works...

We start by identifying the backup set that we want...