Bummer!
Restore points take very little Hard Drive space.Next time don't destroy them. Windows will manage them for you.
This link might offer some ideas:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-windows_update/windows-8-fails-to-update/7e0278a7-33e8-4db0-830e-2fb4ce299331
Thks,Geek. Here's the thing; I didn't destroy any restore points. I purchased the PC on Dec.14/12,set it up Dec.15 and stated loading on Dec.16. Dec.16 is the day that the file was downloaded and failed. A restore point was not made on that day. Another thing; I found the failed download when snooping through the PC in "View Update History". Had I not gone there I would not have known that it failed.
Also now when I go to "View Update History" I'm told that I have not installed any updates and the page is blank. The only way that I can find whether an update has failed is to go to "Installed Updates" and find the files that do not have the option to "Uninstall". Beside the failed file that I previously mentioned there are also 5 other files that I'm unable to uninstall. These files were installed before the date that I purchased the PC.
1)Microsoft Office - installed 09/01/2013
(2,3,4 and 5) Microsoft Windows - installed 11/10/2012
The way that I see this, the big problem is not so much Restore Points as it is the inability to remove and reinstall failed updates. Although it's not possible, even if I somehow would have had a Restore Point previous to 11/10/12 what's to say the that once these were reinstalled(if critical) they would not fail again? Then what? They recommend to have updates installed automatically but do not notify of failure and obviously there's no way to predict one. So from what I've been able to find it's either deny all updates or put up with some failures.
I'm even starting to wonder how important these failed updates are? I wonder how many kazillion PC's are out there with failed updates that people don't even know about?
Since running into this with Win8 I decided to check the updates on my other PC with Vista. Sure enough there's a few failed updates on that one too from long ago. Really wondering if it's worth the effort? overthehill