After Installing Acronis 10, VSS does not work.

[Paldrion]

Acronis was uninstalled and it still does not work even with ntBackup of System State.

This is the current error message:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: VSS
Event Category: None
Event ID: 20
Date: 5/9/2008
Time: 12:05:37 PM
User: N/A
Computer: LR1
Description:
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: A critical component required by the Volume Shadow Copy service is not registered. This might happened if an error occurred during Windows setup or during installation of a Shadow Copy provider. The error returned from CoCreateInstance on class with CLSID {faf53cc4-bd73-4e36-83f1-2b23f46e513e} and Name VSSEvent is [0x80040154].

I have tried everything on other posts on this subject and nothing works.

:wacko:

[Paldrion]

SYMPTOM

VSS Fails when using ntBackup to backup System State. VSSAdmins List writers shows no VSS writers.

CAUSE

Microsoft has released a number of hotfixes and tech notes for VSS for Windows 2003 and Windows Vista, that you should apply for maximum stability and interoperability with the BUDR client. You may find that these hotfixes improve or resolve issues that you are experiencing with BUDR and VSS enabled.
Please note that we have seen some problems with the VSS provider used withing the backup solution that are not yet resolved, namely machines hanging during the backup process. We have notified Acronis and we are working with them toward a permanent solution, however the current workaround is to disable VSS support and cycle complex services on the server to ensure a good backup. Per Acronis, in order to get a good backup of Exchange, SQL or AD, you need to pause the related complex services before the backup begins and start the once the snapshot procedure has completed. Acronis indicated it should take no longer than 2 minutes for this process to complete. This technique will cause interruption to the services during the period that you stop the service. Contact Kaseya tech support for example scripts to cycle the services over the period of the snapshot.

RESOLUTION

It is strongly recommended to run Windows 2003 Service Pack 2 in order to use VSS. If you are running Exchange, you should install the latest service pack (e.g. SP1 for Exchange 2007).
Running Windows 2003 Service Pack 2, so installed the following hot fix:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940349

Was now able to see VSS writers when using VSSAdmin List Writers command, but when using ntBackup to backup System State received VSS error 20 and VSS error 12302.

Reviewed http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940032. Applied the following r-registration commands:

cd /d %windir%\system32
Net stop vss
Net stop swprv
regsvr32 ole32.dll
regsvr32 oleaut32.dll
regsvr32 vss_ps.dll
vssvc /register
regsvr32 /i swprv.dll
regsvr32 /i eventcls.dll
regsvr32 es.dll
regsvr32 stdprov.dll
regsvr32 vssui.dll
regsvr32 msxml.dll
regsvr32 msxml3.dll
regsvr32 msxml4.dll
Net start swprv
Net start vss

Still getting VSS error 12302.

Reviewed http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907574.

Did the following:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex\Catalogs
3. Click the registry subkey for each program that is listed under the Catalogs registry subkey. For each registry subkey, verify whether the Location registry entry exists.
4. If the Location registry entry is missing for a selected program, verify whether the program is still installed.
5. If the program is not installed, right-click the registry subkey for the program under the Catalogs subkey, and then click Delete. If the program is installed, correct the location information.
6. Restart the computer, and then use Windows Backup Utility to test this problem.

MORE INFORMATION
By default, the following subkeys are configured in the following way:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex\Catalogs\SystemEntry name Data type Value
(Default) REG_SZ (value not set)
IsIndexingNNTPSvc REG_DWORD 0x0000000 (0)
IsIndexingW3Svc REG_DWORD 0x0000000 (0)
Location REG_SZ C:\System Volume Information

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ContentIndex\Catalogs\WebEntry name Data type Value
(Default) REG_SZ (value not set)
FilterFilesWithUnknownExtensions REG_DWORD 0x0000000 (0)
GenerateCharacterization REG_DWORD 0x0000001 (1)
IsIndexingNNTPSvc REG_DWORD 0x0000000 (0)
IsIndexingW3Svc REG_DWORD 0x0000001 (1)
Location REG_SZ c:\inetpub
MaxCharacterization REG_DWORD 0x00000140 (320)
W3SvcInstance REG_DWORD 0x0000001 (1)

Noticed that the first key was refering to the D: drive, so checnged the location to the C: drive. Restarted computer.

Tried rebuilding the VSS.

1. Open Service management console, make sure the VSS Service start-up type is set to manual.
2. Restart the computer and double confirm its status is Stopped.
3. Rename the System Volume Information folder.
4. Start the Volume Shadow Copy service again. Set it to Automatic, if it was set to this previously.
5. Wait for couple minutes and you will find a new System Volume Information folder is created.

Machines that have been cloned or ghosted may experience problems with corruption of the COM+ subscription information for VSS writers, especially if NewSID has been used, that can cause VSS problems.

The COM+ subscription information for VSS writers is stored in the registry under the

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\EventSystem\{26c409cc-ae86-11d1-b616-00805fc79216}\Subscriptions key and may be corrupted.

Still getting VSS error 12302.

Tried the following:

1. Export the contents of the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\EventSystem key to a ..registry file (as a backup).

2. Delete the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\EventSystem\{26c409cc-ae86-11d1-b616-00805fc79216}\Subscriptions key. (Just delete the Subscriptions subkey; leave the EventClasses key.)

3. Restarted the server.

4. Ran the "VSSADMIN LIST WRITERS" command.

This causes the VSS entries in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\EventSystem\{26c409cc-ae86-11d1-b616-00805fc79216}\Subscriptions key to be rebuilt when the writers initialize.
You can review the vssadmin commands at http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/89d2e411-6977-4808-9ad5-476c9eaecaa51033.mspx?mfr=true

VSS now seemed to be trying to work with ntBackup, but still getting these errors:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: VSS
Event Category: None
Event ID: 11
Date: 5/9/2008
Time: 10:26:04 PM
User: N/A
Computer: LR1
Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service information: The COM Server with CLSID {5fc845eb-f299-40f0-9725-34045f7ea8ba} and name HWPRV cannot be started. [0x80070422]

Event Type: Error
Event Source: VSS
Event Category: None
Event ID: 12292
Date: 5/9/2008
Time: 10:26:04 PM
User: N/A
Computer: LR1
Description: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Error creating the Shadow Copy Provider COM class with CLSID {5fc845eb-f299-40f0-9725-34045f7ea8ba} [0x80070422].

Event Type: Error
Event Source: DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10005
Date: 5/9/2008
Time: 10:26:04 PM
User: N/A
Computer: LR1
Description: DCOM got error "The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. " attempting to start the service Acronis VSS Provider with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{5FC845EB-F299-40F0-9725-34045F7EA8BA}

Deleted all references to 5fc845eb-f299-40f0-9725-34045f7ea8ba in the registry.
Ran VSSAdmin List Writers at command line.
Tried ntBackup of System State and this time it worked.

:argh:

[Acronis Support]

Hello Paldrion,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

Thank you for sharing your experience, it's very much appreciated. We are glad to hear that your issue has been solved.

Please also notice that Acronis True Image 10.0 Home does not support Windows 2003. It's strongly recommended not to install versions of Acronis True Image under unsupported version of operating systems. You can find the lists of supported operating systems of every version of Acronis True Image in the respective User's Guides (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/docs/).

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov