To setup the Windows Server Backup in Windows 2008 upwards, to support the Hyper-V VSS writer, one must follow the following steps.

After installing the Windows Server Backup and it’s Command-line tools under the Features section in the Server Manager, follow the follwing steps:

Open Command Line or type CMD.EXE
Type VSSADMIN List Writer >C:\vss.txt

Note: This will save a text file with all the VSS information.

Open the VSS.TXT and find the Writer GUID from the section Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer
Copy the GUID to the clipboard
Open Registry Manager by running REGEDIT.EXE
Find the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

If there isn’t a key WindowsServerBackup, create it. Then under it, create another key Application Support. Under that, creat a new key with the GUID of the VSS Writer we copied from the text file.

An example of the GUID is 11234CD5-6AEF-5A6C-8A25-FD15C8AD43D4

After you have created this key with the GUID, Create a new value under it calling it Hyper-V VSS Writer. Make sure it’s of type REGSV using a String Value.

Some notes when it comes to restore:

When affecting restores make sure you select application based restore.
You will not be able to restore a file from a Virtual Machine, you will have to restore all the machine.

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When deleting or editing a folder or file situated in a folder structure you may encounter an error saying that the “Path too long”. This is due to the fact that the whole path to the folder or file is too long and Windows cannot process it. Yeah I know what you’re saying, why does Windows let you create a path that long in the first place.

Well, a quick fix to this is to rename all folders in the structure to a one letter folder. This way you will be able to remove the folders or files to a normal structured location and the Windows will not argue with the path being too long.

Example:

C:
– A
– A
– A
– A

etc. etc.

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Sometimes you might end up waiting for more than 30 minutes or more to stop the DHCP server on Windows 2008 onwards. Sometimes waiting for much longer. Well to manually kill the process you will need to first find the PID of the process DHCP server and then kill it.

Make sure you run the command line ‘As Administrator’

sc queryex dhcpserver

this will give you the information on the DHCP server process including the PID number. Keep note of this and then run:

Taskskill /F /pid (PID number)


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If you try to make a server backup with Microsoft’s SBS 2011, you will surely get an instant error saying:

“A Volume Shadow Copy Service operation error has occurred: (0x800423f0). The shadow-copy set only contains only a subset of the volumes needed to correctly backup the selected components of the writer”

This can be solved by opening a command-line as administrator and going into the folder:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN

and running:

PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures

After completing, the backup will work like a charm.

Click here to read more on the matter.

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Open a command prompt or set this up in a batch file to run when users log in the system and have the following set.

w32tm /config /syncfromflags:domhier /update
net stop w32time
net start w32time

This will synchronize the time of the machine to point to the domain controller which is configured on the machine. If the machine is joined to domain X it will inherit the time setup from domain X, irrelevant if there are multiple domain controllers in domain X. This is the new format which has taken place of the NET TIME which was used by Windows XP downwards.

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For Windows Vista and 7. This might have happen to most of us. When you log in your profile, you get a popup on the bottom right that says ‘You have been logged on with a temporary profile. You cannot access your files and files created in this profile will be deleted when you log off. This sometimes happens when the username has either been changed or the folder of the profile has been deleted. So Windows will continue to look for it and leave you with a temporary profile. To fix this you need to make the following to restore the folder.

:: Log on the machine as an Administrator
:: Click on Start and type regedit
:: Find the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
:: There are a lot of folders in the key. Find the ones with the .BAK at the end
:: Delete the profiles in question with the .BAK extention (Make sure you take a backup of the registry first)
:: Close Regedit
:: Restart PC

After you log into the computer, the profile folder you are having problems with is re-created.

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Sometime you will note that some network interfaces would either not work or just give errors. This usually occurs when using images on HyperV but just in case you need to remove hidden or phantom devices like ‘network adapter #5’, here’s how.

:: Open command prompt
:: Type CMD
:: Type set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
:: From the same window (Do not close the window in this process), type devmgmt.msc

This will load the Device Manager. Now, click on ‘View’ and select ‘Show hidden devices’.

Now you can simply either delete the hidden/phantom interfaces or uninstall the device.

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