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Torsten Curdt’s weblog

Broken Volume Shadow Service

So backing up a Window system is unfortunately not as easy as one would hope. A low level backup from within the operating system itself wasn’t even possible until Microsoft introduced the “Volume Shadow Service“. Before that you had to boot into a different system or use a boot disk to do the backup. This is no longer required as programs like “ntbackup” or “DriveImage XML” can use this system service to do the backup …if it is working properly. Essentially you need to make sure that these two services are up and running

  • MS Software Shadow Copy Provider
  • Volume Shadow Service

Too bad though if they refuse to start. There is a good chance you’ve run into the same problem where the COM+ service (a dependency of the two above services) fails to start. Check the EventViewer for

English: The COM+ System Application service terminated unexpectedly.

German: Dienst COM+-Systemanwendung konnte nicht gestartet werden.

Turns out that (for whatever strange reason) the “ole32.dll” might have gotten un-registered. So what you want to do is to re-register it and then reboot the machine.

regsvr32 ole32.dll

If the following two commands work without giving an error you are good to go for the backup.

vssadmin list shadows
vssadmin list writers

Whenever I have to go back to help out some friends that are still on Windows I find myself saying “Boy, this is so annoying – get a Mac!” …and I am not even an Apple fan boy.

  • @steve: You would have to provide at least the events from the browser. With such little information there is nothing one could say about this.
  • steve
    Gentlemen:

    I've been having problems with my Windows XP Pro, and have recently discovered that it's related to the Volume Shadow Copy service. My Application Event Browser shows numerous VSS errors resulting in frequent application hanging. Backups work to a point, but bomb partway through.

    Any suggestions?
  • No - Sorry. What's the output of the two vssadming commands?
  • Mark
    So, I tried your suggestion of: regsvr32 ole32.dll
    Didn't make a difference. Any other suggestions?
  • Pablo
    Full ack! A friend of me used to call me every 3-4 months as he had problems with a windows machine. Since he bought a Mac the problems are just gone :)

    Not to say that a Mac ist problem-free but a lot things simply work!
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