VISTA home Premium: system protection tab is missing

You can restore your system to an earlier point to avoid the updated vista.

To do so: 1.Type "restore" in the search field of your START MENU, 2.Click on SYSTEM RESTORE 3.Chose a suitable restore point , before your vista got updated. 4.successfully complete the system restore and restart.
When you restore your pc to an earlier point, updates are cancelled and in this way you can avoid the updates.
Click this for more information

Try turning system restore off and scanning. System resore can hide your problems.
Try this guide http://www.fixya.com/support/r5272277-secure_clean_computers

First you need to disable system restore on the drive to reclaim the missing space. To do this, you can do the following:
1. Go to Start > Control Panel > System
2. In System > Click on System Protection at the left side
3. In the System Protection Window > go to the System Protection Tab > then uncheck C: then hit Apply then OK

After disabling system restore, run disk clean up:
1. Go to Start > Computer > Right-click on C: > Disk Cleanup - make sure to check all of the files to be deleted to clear as much space as possible
2. After initially running Disk Cleanup you will now be able to see the More Options tab in the Disk Cleanup window > go to this tab then cleanup the System Restore and Shadow Copies to remove them completely
3. Enable the System Restore from the System Protection tab in System.
4. Resize the maximum amount of Shadow Copies that can be saved on the system, this will lock the System Restore feature from saving more than allocated amount. Run Command Prompt as administrator (go to Start > Programs > Accesories > then right-click on Command Prompt then Run as Administrator)
Set the maximum to whatever amount you feel is necessary. Setting it to 1GB should be more than enough for System Restore to create at least two restore points. Type the command: vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=c: /for=c: /maxsize=1gb

5. Once this is done you should have reclaimed at least 30 to 40% of the missing space. Once the System Restore has been reenabled it will automatically create the restore points so there will be no need to manually create one.

Creating a System Restore point using a shortcut For a more elegant way to create a System Restore point using Script in Windows Vista, check out our article Create System Restore Points Quickly using Script in Windows Vista and Windows XP.
Alternately, you may use the method below:
Copy the contents below to a Notepad document, and save it to a file name with .vbs extension (Example: createrp.vbs) and close Notepad.
set SRP = getobject("winmgmts:\\.\root\default:Systemrestore")
CSRP = SRP.createrestorepoint ("Created a Restore Point now", 0, 100)
If CSRP <> 0 then
Msgbox "Error " & CSRP & ": Unable to create System Restore point"
End if
Right-click on the Desktop and select New - Shortcut
Create a shortcut with the following target:
wscript.exe c:\scripts\createrp.vbs
Note: The above assumes that the createrp.vbs script is present in the c:\scripts folder. If that's not the case, change the Path accordingly.
Name the shortcut file name as Create Restore Point
Running the script To create a System Restore point, run the script with elevated mode. To do so, right-click on the newly created shortcut (Create Restore Point.lnk) and choose Run as administrator. When you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. A System Restore point will automatically be created.

I suspect a program or driver for a hardware device was just installed prior to this error. Best thing to do is to use Windows Restore and use a restore point dated before the first occurance of the error. You may need to repeat this process choosing previous restore points until system is back to normal or you have run out of restore points.
Here's how:
Startup computer and go into safe mode (Press F5 key as computer is starting up but before you see the Windows logo screen).
Open your Windows Vista Start menu, select All Programs, select System Tools, and then choose System Restore.
Use the System Restore Wizard to choose a restore point/date that was created before the error started occurring on your Windows Vista computer.
Revert your system configuration to this same restore point.

If error still occurs and you had other restore points, you can repeat process with older restore points.

If you have gone back several points and still cannot, you may have not choice but to do a full Windows restore. This can result in a loss of data.

If you get to this point, re-post here for instructs on how to possibly save data before doing a full restore.

Bret
1-2-1ComputerServices

You may need to check to see which "service pack" you are currently on.

See below requirements:

System Software — Windows XP & Vista

• Windows Vista Business or Ultimate Edition
  
  • 32-bit OS Installation Only
    
• Windows XP Professional or Home Edition
  
  • With Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Service Pack 3
    
  
  
• Not Supported:
  
  • Windows Vista 64-bit (any version)
    
  • Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
    
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition
    
  • Windows 98, Me, 2000, NT, 95, 3.1, DOS
    
  
  
• Not Tested:
  
  • Windows Vista Home and Home Premium Edition
    
  • Although Windows Vista Home and Home Premium Edition have not been tested or qualified by Digidesign, there are currently no known issues with Vista Home and Home Premium 32-bit operating systems and Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4 compared to the supported Windows Vista Business or Ultimate Edition operating systems.
    

Windows Vista SP1
There are currently no known issues with Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista based on our initial limited testing and customer feedback. Although full qualification with all Digidesign products has not been completed, we do not recommend against updating to SP1, given the number of important overall system fixes in SP1. We do recommend that you backup your system and create a restore point before updating to SP1, should you encounter any problems after installing the update.

Do you mean "system restore" ?

If so its under control panel, system, system restore.

If it is turned off already then you will not be able to go back to an earlier restore point.

If you have a virus / spyware issue then take note that these can also hide in system restore points so even if you wanted to restore to a point before a virus or spyware issue you would still restore the bug too !

They can also corrupt the restore points so that they wont work

no you didnt miss a step you just need to try and create another partition

the best thing to solve your problem is to reformat your system.it will cure all problems and also bad history.