System Restore Nuanced Questions re update from 8 to 8.1

Can't find the under-the-hood answers to these questions. Maybe Shawn "brink" sees this an can answer being the SR guru that he is.

[1] I've observed System restore disabled by bad guys (malware). I also happened to see it disabled after an update from 8 to 8.1. I assumed this was "normal" in that it may be too hard for Microsoft to roll back to restore points from 8 when you are at 8.1. If so, do they document that anywhere? If they indeed do this then they surely need to remember to turn it back on when the 8.1 updates are done. If they don't do this, it tells me to look out for the bad guys doing it.

[2] How dependent is SR on which services. Suppose my WMI service has been stopped/crippled and i don't realize it. Does SR depend on WMI? In what way?

[3] Is there a recovery tool to undo someone turning off System Restore and attempt to salvage what is there. I'm assuming the disabling of SR doesn't go around actually scrubbing the data and that it can indirectly be salvaged, albeit at some (hopefully) understood risk.

Thanks,

H.

3. If one turns off System Restore it generally deletes the necessary files automatically. And Yes, some infections can do just that leaving the user with nothing to work with.

As for Win8 versus Win8.1, if you've been computing for awhile you may remember Win98 and the follow-on Win98SE [Second Edition] which had a lot of improvements over the earlier version. I think 8.1 can be considered the same way. Installing 8.1 deleted all the Updates done when running 8 on my computers, gave the OS a clean beginning, same for System Restore, wouldn't want any of the old files hanging around.

Seems to me I've seen all or most of the remnants when turned off. Turning it back on may reformat the folder(s). So, it remains unknown if such a tool exists but it's not important.

Regarding your other comment, I concur it "seemed" (I wasn't checking) to remove the old points after 8 to 8.1 but did it "seemed" to do so by turning Restore off and leaving it off (putting the burden on you to realize this and turn it back on)?