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.