There are many times that VSS can be a PITA! Trying to backup a HyperV VM or jsut an application and have VSS errors. There are many troublesooting options most of them doing partial job and probable wont fix any errors. The below command set from microsoft almost everytime solves the VSS problems. Actually it re-registers the VSS.
Open an elevated command prompt session
CD to WindowsSystem32 (depending on the version of the OS many dll’s will fail to register, you can ignore them)
Net stop vss
Net stop swprv
regsvr32 ole32.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
Reboot your server.
After reboot, open a command prompt and run:
vssadmin list writers
Ensure that all your writers are displayed w/o errors.
FInally retry your backup
Pantelis Apostolidis is a Sr. Specialist, Azure at Microsoft and a former Microsoft Azure MVP. For the last 20 years, Pantelis has been involved to major cloud projects in Greece and abroad, helping companies to adopt and deploy cloud technologies, driving business value. He is entitled to a lot of Microsoft Expert Certifications, demonstrating his proven experience in delivering high quality solutions. He is an author, blogger and he is acting as a spokesperson for conferences, workshops and webinars. He is also an active member of several communities as a moderator in azureheads.gr and autoexec.gr. Follow him on Twitter @papostolidis.
