Enable VSS and WSB for Hyper-V Backups
by Norm on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 8:05
As an admin, I generally cringe whenever I hear the word backup. It’s not that backups are a bad thing, quite the opposite. A good backup can save you from a lot of frustration down the road. The reason I cringe is because backups fall into the category of un-fun things to do. Nobody wants to setup and manage backups (at least I hope that’s true).
So, since we’ve established that backups are a necessary evil, it might be wise to point out that Hyper-V is no exception. With the addition of Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and Windows Server Backup (WSB), it really couldn’t be easier.
For those of you that remember the old NTBackup, you’ll be happy to know that WSB is the replacement for that age old software. Sadly, Microsoft failed to make WSB a standard feature in Windows Server 2008, so you’ll have to enable it manually from the Add Features wizard found in the Server Manager.
Once you complete the addition of the WSB feature, there is still one more step to complete. Hyper-V comes ready to support VSS backups, however it is not enabled by default. You’ll need to make a couple of tweaks to the registry for WSB to recognize the Hyper-V VSS writer. First, add the following key to your registry in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\ApplicationSupport:
{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}
Now a new REG SZ string called Application Identifier, with the value Hyper-V, to the key you just created. That’s it! Seems simple, right? That’s because it is! Please note that this does require Administrative privileges and a reboot is not required.
Here is the complete syntax, just incase you are a command line junkie, or if you like to script things:
reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\ApplicationSupport\{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}"
reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WindowsServerBackup\ApplicationSupport\{66841CD4-6DED-4F4B-8F17-FD23F8DDC3DE}" /v "Application Identifier" /t Reg_SZ /d Hyper-V
While it may be painful to manage backups, you’ll thank me later.
Popularity: 12%
Aaron Segal says:
January 10th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Are these registry changes to be made on the host, or the guest?
Norm says:
January 11th, 2009 at 12:56 am
Aaron, excellent question! The registry changes would be made on the host, that’s where Hyper-V is running. Hope that helps.
Reader says:
January 27th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Wow! Thank you very much!
I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my site?
Of course, I will add backlink?
Regards, Reader