Specifically, he noted that he was "losing" restore points, meaning they would disappear after he'd created them.

Before I read any further, I immediately thought, "Ah, I know what's happening here." By default (in Windows 7, anyway), Windows displays only a couple of the most recent restore points. What's easy to overlook is the option down below: Show more restore points.

Check that box and presto: a whole big list of them.

But, no, George hadn't simply overlooked that toggle switch. His restore points were gone, period, so he did the smart thing and visited various user forums in search of an answer. He quickly learned he wasn't the only one vexed by this problem. I'll let him explain what happened next. (I've edited portions of the letter for length and clarity.)

"On one of the forums, I just happened to notice that one of the responders asked if the questioner had any third-party disk defragmenters installed. I have Diskeeper 10, and it's set it to do automatic defragging, but that couldn't possibly be whats eating up my restore points -- or could it?