VSS "otherGuest" is not supported

[Korion]

We are testing Veeam Backup 3.1 on the commercial version of ESXi 4 (fully patched less the Cisco update). On the Windows Essential Business Server machines which run WIndows 2008 x64 we get a warning message "Failed to perform Veeam VSS freeze: guest OS "otherGuest" is not supported."

- I've confirmed that the OS choice is WIndows 2008 64 bit on the VM properties.
- I've also tried unchecking the Enable VMWare tools quiescence with the same result.
- VMWare tools are all current and shows that the service is running

We have another machine running Windows 2008 x64 and that is backing up without issues. Windows 2003 x86 and Windows 2000 Server are all also backing up fine.

Any suggestions on next steps?

Thanks

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Dean,

That surely should be supported, can you have a look using Managed Object Browser at your ESXi host to the summary information of this VM?
If you have any questions of how to do that please contact us to support@veeam.com, also It'll be great to see the job log containing that VM.
By the way do you get the same error for all Windows Server instances that are in EBS solution?

As for Windows 2000 machine, unfortunately, this type of OS doesn't support VSS, however you can always use VMwarel Tools quiescence option for that.

Thank you.

[Korion]

Thanks.

I just opened a ticket (511195) since I don't see the summary information you're requesting when I go to https://<myserver>/mob. I've included a screenshot of that sceen along with a screenshot of the error message from that job,

Yes, I get the same error message for all instances of EBS but it works fine for non-EBS servers running the same OS (Windows 2008 x64) as EBS in the same domain.

Thanks.

[Gostev]

Based on the logs this looks like VMware Tools does not support this OS edition yet and classifies it improperly as "otherGuest", which makes the OS verification fails for Veeam VSS. But, if this check is removed, the Veeam VSS enabled job will start failing on other OSes that really do not support VSS.

[SamDLC]

I have the same problem. I am running Windows Essential Business Server machines which run WIndows 2008 x64 and 2 non EBS machines. The 2 non EBS machines work great. Is there a fix for this? I am really happy with VEEAM on other installations.
I am running latest version of VEEAM.

[Gostev]

There is a registry key that will enable VSS processing even when OS returned by VMware Tools reads "other guest" (which would normally prevent Veeam from attempting VSS freeze on the VM). You can obtain the key from support (I don't remember it, and am traveling right now so cannot check with devs directly). Hope this helps.

[SamDLC]

OK I just send a quick email to support. I hope they can help me. I want to really stick with Veeam.
This is a new client I have and I have just told him how happy i am with Veeam on other installations.