I have a viao nr11s/s and run vista home premium with Norton 360 v2, but every time i have used system restore the system does not restore, i get, there has been a error, message displayed. anybody had similar problems.
I had this problem on a previous laptop with Norton anti virus installed. It was suggested to me that I turn off system restore (losing all previous restore points - but as they didn't work anyway it didn't matter) then reboot the laptop and then turn system restore back on. It worked for me. It seems that Norton recognises certain system restore files as undesirable and eats them 🙂 go figure.
One of my friends called me last week to tell me there was a problem with his computer and what I got trying to fix it was exactly the same error through the system restore as you (and I got it twice), probably because of a similar setup with Norton. Then what I did was simply to reboot in safe mode (when you reboot you hit F8 just before windows shows the starting progress) and well do the system restore in safe mode then reboot and everything is suppose to be all right. I think this has definitely something to do with Norton and shet...
Without having an intention to defy our friend quackers here I would otherwise tend to strongly suggest to let the system restore ON, cause sometimes it can just save your life without so much worries.
found away around this problem untick enable firewall for norton making sure your not connected to internet and then do system restore when complete enable firewall. then carry on as normale
Glad you found a solution... 
