They don't do anything while in that folder, the only time that those viruses become active and pose a threat to the system is when you use those infected restore points. the fact is, viruses in that folder are DORMANT and HARMLESS. They also believe that viruses in the System Restore will creep out of that folder and re-infect the system. The bad practice that many PC techs have is the disabling of System Restore before cleaning the system. The best time to turn it off is AFTER the cleanup, hence this article. There have been so many discussions about this, and I've addressed it many times. with an infected system - when do you purge those restore points? Do you disable it BEFORE or AFTER removing the infections? The timing as to when to turn off System Restore is very important. But the good thing is, it is also very easy to remove viruses in that folder, all you have to do is turn it off and all viruses will be deleted along with all of the restore points. However, in cases where the system is infected, System Restore might also back up infected files and viruses. It is indeed a very useful windows component that can save users time of repairing or reinstalling the Operating System.

System Restore - is a Windows utility that periodically saves the changes made in the system, e.g., backup monitored files, registry, drivers and allow users to roll back the system to its previous state in the event of PC instability or program failures.

System volume information virus