unable to backup windows server 2012 vm

[real_tarantoga]

hello board,
i didn't found the topic which will mean that i'm a little bit too stupid for server 2012, but ... well, i need your help!

the backup job can not connect to the admin$ share, while i can connect manually to this share. i suppose, that's due to a restriction in the authentication process!?
what can i do to run a succeful backup job with vss used against a windows 2012 server vm?

There's no domain (active directory) usable, so with 2012 i can't use [domain\account] - with 2k3 and 2k8 it was possible to run a job only with [account].
have i to enter for each machine [workgroup\account]??? it would be somewhat ... unwanted.

thank you!
stefan

[chrisdearden]

use ./administrator - that will use the local account.

[real_tarantoga]

hello chris,
thank you for your answer. on the first try it didn't work, but i have to investigate it tomorrow in the office. now, it's time for beer and sun set.

Greetings from the "swabian mountains".
Stefan

[chrisdearden]

Just realised a typo there .\administrator should do the trick

[real_tarantoga]

i switched the slash assuming it was a typo.
I didn't realise yesterday, that the Problem occurs only with other administrative accounts then the built-in administrator. so it seems that i have to "activate" admin share access on the 2k12 Servers.
i'm not yet familar with the changes in 2k12 ...

[chrisdearden]

I think I've seen that before - though it was via the VIX api for networkless connection. I think I've just switched over to the built in account.

[foggy]

Looks like the known issue documented in the Release Notes document included with your download (not w2012-specific, actually):

Network-less interaction with Microsoft Windows guests having UAC enabled (Vista or later) requires that Local Administrator (MACHINE\Administrator) or Domain Administrator (DOMAIN\Administrator) account is provided on Guest Processing step.

You need to specify local "Administrator" account, not just "account with local administrative privileges" to backup VM with VSS enabled.

[veremin]

As a side note - if this 2012 machine doesn’t run any Microsoft specific application (for example, Domain Controller, Exchange Server, SQL Server), there is no actual need to enable Application Aware Image Processing option.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[real_tarantoga]

thank you for your comments. I didn't have the time to check your ideas. i wonder that the issue could be related to an api behaviour not specific for w2k12?!
there were never problems with w2k8, w7, w2k3 ...

it will take some more time before i can really check it and give you a qualified answer!

[real_tarantoga]

hello board,
all investigations are finished and I'm finally persuaded that there's no veeam API error (in my case) - the vss using backup process works with the "Administrator" and with administrative accounts in Active Directory Environments. The only restrictions were administrative accounts in Workgroup Environments. We have seen similar in Winows 2k8 R2, what could be resolved with Windows configuration Settings (here it was related to network sharing options).
I've taken the decision to disable in workgroup environments the UAC security option for all administrators to be prompted for "elevation" - this was the only Switch to Change. Now I can continue to use the specific backup account - and the decentralized application Administrators will continue to use the "Administrator".

Thank you, Stefan

[foggy]

Stefan, thanks for updating the thread, much appreciated!