Perform System Restore Rollback Offline via Windows RE

System Restore is an excellent tool that can rescue the system from catastrophe. But, when you cannot revert the system configuration from normal mode, you can perform System Restore rollback offline via Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), or from Safe Mode.

This post tells you how to revert the system configuration by rolling back to an earlier restore point in offline mode — via System Recovery Options or Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE). Windows Recovery Environment loads a very minimal set of drivers wherein restore point rollbacks can be more successful, as no 3rd party programs or drivers are loaded in the Recovery Environment.

Rollback via System Recovery Options (Windows RE)

Press Win + X to open the Power User menu. Click Shut down or sign out, press and hold the SHIFT key and click Restart. You can also open Settings (WinKey + i), click Update and Security, Recovery, and the Restart Now button under Advanced Startup.

Or, from the login screen, you can also press and hold SHIFT, and restart Windows. This gets you to Recovery Options.

perform system restore rollback offline in windows 10

If Windows doesn’t start, then boot the system using your Windows installation media to access the Recovery Options. Or you may use the Recovery drive if you’ve created one already. For more information, refer to the section “Accessing the Recovery Environment” in the article How to Edit the Registry Offline Using Windows RE

In the Recovery Options, click Troubleshoot.

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline in windows 10

Click Advanced options.

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline in windows 10

Select System Restore

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline

Select the user account

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline

Type in the password, and click Continue

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline via windows re

In the System Restore window, click Next.

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline



You can see the date and time of each restore point available. Select the recent restore point that was created when the system was stable, and click Next

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline

Click Finish

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline

Click Yes when you see the following dialog:

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline

System Restore cannot be undone until after it has completed. If System Restore is being run in Safe mode or from the System Recovery Options menu, it cannot be undone.

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline

If rollback were successful, you’d see the following message:

Perform System Restore Rollback Offline

System Restore completed successfully. The system has been restored to [date/time]. Your documents have not been affected. Click the Restore button to restart the computer.

On the other hand, if you get any errors, such as “unable to mount the registry hive” or similar errors, go back and choose a different restore point and try again.

Once done, restart Windows.

See also How to Create a Restore Point or Rollback to Previous Restore Point?


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

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