When Troubleshooting These Windows Services Must Be...

[ItGl72]

I would like confirmation of what services must be checked when troubleshooting (typically VSS related) Veeam backup failures. I'm not sure if my list below is complete, excessive, or has the running, not running, manual or automatic settings correct but would like to confirm in order to document. Would there be differences between server 2008, 2012, or 2016? Thank you for reading.


•Ensure that the COM+ System Application service is listed as STARTED and that the startup type is listed as MANUAL.
•Ensure that the COM+ Event System service is listed as STARTED and that the startup type is listed as AUTOMATIC.
•Ensure that the System Event Notification service is listed as STARTED and that the startup type is listed as AUTOMATIC.
•Ensure that the Background Intelligent Transfer service is listed as STARTED and that the startup type is listed as AUTOMATIC.
•Ensure that the Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider service startup type is listed as MANUAL.
•Ensure that the Veeam Snapshot Provider is listed as STARTED and that the startup type is listed as MANUAL. (What is this? I don’t see it)
•Ensure that the Virtual Disk service is listed as STARTED and that the startup type is listed as MANUAL.
•Ensure that the Volume Shadow Copy service startup type is listed as MANUAL.
•Ensure that the Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy Requestor service startup type is listed as MANUAL.
•Ensure that the Windows Internal Database VSS Writer Provider service startup type is listed as MANUAL.
•Ensure that the SQL Server VSS Writer service is listed as STARTED and that the startup type is listed as AUTOMATIC.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Greg,

Your list looks good although not every service is necessary for VSS itself, but necessary for other services or actions that need to be done. There are indeed differences between 2008/ 2012 (and even between 2012 and R2) and 2016. The entire backup architecture has changed in 2016 so that will make it different already (I believe the Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy requestor is not in 2016 anymore)

But what I normally do (before checking services) is to use the vssadmin tool to see if there are errors over there, so I would state that as first troubleshooting step

[ItGl72]

Yes I am aware of those other troubleshooting steps. This thread was created specifically for confirming which services need to be checked during the troubleshooting steps and if they should be running, automatic or manual.