Using System Restore without JAWS or Narrator
- From: "Dave Carlson" <dgcarlson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:44:53 -0700
Using System Restore without JAWS or Narrator
What if you install something, a program or a patch, and after a reboot, you
have no speech or Braille? And even Narrator doesn't work? You may be able
to recover from this if you could just do a system restore back to just
before you installed that program or patch. But JAWS and Narrator neither
seem to work.
I've had this problem before and decided to write a procedure to use in case
it ever happens again.
This procedure helps you do a System Restore without the aid of JAWS or
Narrator. Of course Narrator is preferable to doing this "blind", but
sometimes there is no choice.
If you are satisfied with this procedure it would be a good idea to have a
copy on another computer or recorded on a cassette tape or MP3 player or
printed out in Braille. If your system has crashed and you don't have JAWS,
then you can't read this file when you need it.
The System Restore Wizard works like a web page with links, lists, and
buttons, so navigation is easy as long as you have first-letter navigation
enabled in web pages, and I think most of us do.
This is not a tutorial on what System Restore does. Use the "Help" link on
the first page to learn about System Restore.
Please try this first when your system is working fine and JAWS is speaking,
so you can verify just how it works, to your satisfaction. When testing,
just stop before step 13 and Alt+F4 to exit System Restore.
Especially pay attention to step 1 below.
1. Always have an easily-identifiable Icon on the desktop for System Restore
that you can reach with a single unique key, or a hotkey. This is very handy
when no
speech is working. Mine is labeled with an Exclamation Mark as the first
character so I can always find it on the desktop without JAWS.
2. Launch System Restore using this key combination or Icon.
3. Press Alt+r to select "Restore to an earlier time". This is usually
selected by default, but it's good to be certain.
4. Press Alt+n to bring up the next page
5. This shows any restore points created for the current day starting with
Midnight, your current time.
6. Press L to jump to the current day list. This list always shows the
newest restore point on top, if any exist.
7. If you're sure that the current day has the restore point you want, go
to step 9.
8. If a previous day is needed, Shift+b twice to go to the "Previous Day"
button
8.1. Press Space Bar to switch back to previous day.
8.2. Press L to jump to the list of that days restore points. This list
always shows the newest restore point on top, if any exist.
9. If you need the oldest restore point for any day, do the following.
9.1. Press B to jump down to the "back" button.
9.2. Up arrow exactly 5 times to reach the bottom of the list of restore
points. This is the oldest for that day, if any exist.
10. Press Spacebar to activate your desired restore point.
Note: Up to this step if you don't have any speech or Braille, you're still
not absolutely certain that any restore points exist. We're just guessing.
11. Press Alt+N to open the next page.
12. If you hear a sound it usually means that there were no restore points
for that day. If this happens,
12.1. Press Enter to dismiss the message.
12.2. Press L to go to the top of the list again, and you will hear a sound.
12.3. Go back to step 8 to select the previous day.
13. Press Enter to launch System Restore.
14. The computer will reboot.
15. You will be prompted with a confirm dialog during the reboot.
16. Wait for your reboot to complete. Hopefully JAWS is working again.
17. Press Alt+o to dismiss the "Okay" button in the confirm dialog.
NOTE: This is how it works on my XP Pro machine, so I don't know of any
possible variations with other systems. That's why I encourage you to try it
on your system with speech on to verify. Make any changes you need to the
procedure for your version and save as a text file that you can get at when
your computer crashes -- like another computer or a tape recorder.
Note that you can always use System Restore to undo what you just did. This
is offered as a choice in the first page. Also you can select a different
restore point if the one you chose didn't make the changes you needed.
I make no claims of this being foolproof. Any damage to your system using
this procedure is the responsibility of the person using the procedure.
--
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