Veeam Agent 13.0.3 Recovery Media (Windows 11 25H2 WinRE) - SMB access and local restore issue - Support Case: #08164986

[leventh]

Support Case: #08164986

Environment

Lenovo laptop
Windows 11 Insider 25H2 (Recovery Media created from this WinRE)
Veeam Agent 13.0.3.1220
ReadyNAS 214 (SMB)
Local USB disk also tested

13.0.2 Recovery Media (created from Windows 11 23H2 WinRE)

Network share accessible
Backup repository detected
Restore points listed correctly
Restore starts
Eventually fails with:
Shared memory connection was closed
(include recovery logs if available)

13.0.3 Recovery Media (created from Windows 11 25H2 WinRE)

Network tests:

ping UNINAS214 → OK
wpeutil InitializeNetwork → OK
net use → System error 1222
net view \\UNINAS214 → System error 53
dir \\UNINAS214\Backups → The system cannot find the path specified

GUI:

Network restore cannot access the repository.

Local backup test

Even when restoring from a locally attached disk (no SMB involved):

Backup is detected.
Restore starts.
Fails with:
Authentication failed, see inner exception.

Question

Is Veeam Agent 13.0.3 Recovery Media currently compatible with Windows 11 25H2 (Insider) WinRE?

Has anyone reproduced:

SMB access problems from Recovery Media
Local restore "Authentication failed" errors
Differences between Recovery Media created from 23H2 vs 25H2 WinRE?

I have reviewed KB4726. However, unlike the documented issue, I can reproduce the failure even when restoring from a locally attached USB disk, without any SMB or Veeam Backup Server connection involved.

[Mildur]

Hi Levent,

Thanks for the case number.

Please always wait for a conclusion from our Customer Support team, as politely requested by our forum policy. A forum topic will not make the investigation happen any faster, since there is no-one from our support team active in this forum.

Is Veeam Agent 13.0.3 Recovery Media currently compatible with Windows 11 25H2 (Insider) WinRE?

Windows 11 25H2 is fully supported. However, regarding “Insider”: no, using Insider versions together with Veeam Agent is not supported. We cannot guarantee proper functionality in such environments.

System Requirements for Microsoft Windows Computers

Running Veeam Agent on Insider versions of Microsoft Windows Client and Server OSes is not supported.

Thank you,
Fabian

[L.Gapp]

Hello,

We are experiencing the same issue.

We created recovery media with Veeam Recovery Media 13.0.3, but no SMB shares are available. Even when using the Command Prompt and running:

net use K: \\<server>\<share>

the connection cannot be established.

After investigating, we found that the LanmanWorkstation (Workstation) service is not running, which appears to be the cause of the problem.

We also tried to start the service manually using:

net start lanmanworkstation

However, this fails with an error, so the service cannot be started.

As a workaround, we had to use an older recovery image, where SMB access works as expected.

[leventh]

In addition to the information below, my system is not running a Windows Insider Preview build. It is running the public Windows 11 25H2 build 26200.8894 (KB5121767 Out-of-Band). Therefore, I believe the Insider limitation mentioned in the forum does not apply to my environment.

After some tests the version of Windows 11 between 23H2 and 25H2 the result of the process as below:

Windows 11 23H2 + Veeam Agent 13.0.3 Recovery Media

Bare Metal Restore completed successfully.
The Recovery Media successfully restored backups created by both Veeam Agent 6.0.0 and Veeam Agent 13.0.3.
The recovery environment correctly initialized the network (Ethernet and Wi-Fi adapters were available).
Restore logs were exported successfully.

Windows 11 25H2 + Veeam Agent 13.0.3 Recovery Media

Bare Metal Restore consistently fails with the previously reported AuthenticationException.
The Recovery Media does not initialize the network in the same way as the 23H2 Recovery Media.

Based on these comparison tests, the issue appears to be reproducible only with Recovery Media created from Windows 11 25H2 in my environment.

According to conclusion from Veeam customer support;
(Maybe it will help those who have the same problem).

The temporary solution is to use WS2025 Recovery Media (It seems that all versions that were based on a June release seem to be affected)
Unfortunately, at the moment, the root cause of the issue alongside potential fixes are still investigated.

[leventh]

Hello,

We are experiencing the same issue.

We created recovery media with Veeam Recovery Media 13.0.3, but no SMB shares are available. Even when using the Command Prompt and running:

net use K: \\<server>\<share>

the connection cannot be established.

After investigating, we found that the LanmanWorkstation (Workstation) service is not running, which appears to be the cause of the problem.

We also tried to start the service manually using:

net start lanmanworkstation

However, this fails with an error, so the service cannot be started.

As a workaround, we had to use an older recovery image, where SMB access works as expected.

Hello,

I already did it "net start lanmanworkstation" but it doesn't work...
Please see my last post.

I'm going to try WS2025 recovery media and share the results.

[Mildur]

Hi Levent,

Thanks for the case number.
I discussed your case with my R&D colleagues.
We already have a case open with Microsoft, as we fully rely on Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE).

Best,
Fabian

[joecruz]

Hello PM Team,

I ran into this issue with a partner, it had the same error message. Slightly different setup, we are testing bare metal recovery from a physical system to a VMware VM to get my partner used to the process and create plans for alternate restoration options in DR scenarios.

OS: Windows 11 24H2
Trying to perform a bare metal restore from backups stored in a Cloud Connect Repository.
Case #: 03834267

[lluttrell]

This has been an issue for over a month. Reproducible by many, but not confirmed by veeam. I burned through my entire evaluation period trying to work with support on this issue.

The provided workaround for new users (who don't have older recovery media) is to:

1) Download and install windows 10 (yes the EOL product)
2) Install veeam agent on it
3) Install drivers for the target windows 11 machine if needed
4) Create a recovery image from the windows 10 machine, (add the extra drivers if needed)

Support was not able to confirm this is a bug. Explanation was an old bug that was fixed in 2025. There's no KB for this as far as I'm aware.

Case #08133492
Case #08157716

Hope this helps

[leventh]

Veeam confirm that this reproduce by mostly 25H2 RE environment, they still working to solve the issue, I try WS2025 recovery media but it doesn’t work too.
I tested, the recovery media is working created by Windows 11 23H2 release.

[leventh]

I have completed the testing of the custom Windows Server 2025 Recovery Media and attached the corresponding log files.

Unfortunately, the custom recovery media does not resolve the issue in my environment.

Test Results
Local Bare Metal Recovery (drive D:)
Successful.
I intentionally corrupted the Windows Boot Configuration before the test.
The recovery completed successfully, the boot configuration was restored, and Windows booted normally afterwards.

This confirms that the recovery engine itself is functioning correctly.

SMB Bare Metal Recovery (NAS)

Still unsuccessful.

After manually loading the required network drivers:

Network connectivity works correctly.
I can successfully ping the NAS.
net view \\ correctly lists all SMB shares.
The recovery wizard accepts the UNC path and credentials.

However, no backup chain is displayed and the wizard reports "No items", therefore no restore point can be selected.

Driver Injection

The custom Windows Server 2025 Recovery Media is hardware-independent and therefore does not inherit the drivers from the machine where it was created.

I manually injected the required Ethernet and WLAN drivers into the recovery media, rebuilt it and rebooted to verify the result.

Unfortunately, the injected drivers are still not loaded automatically, so the NIC drivers must be loaded manually before any network operation can be performed.

Additional Observations
The generic WS2025 Recovery Media only provides the English (US) keyboard layout.
My locally created Recovery Media includes both English and Turkish keyboard layouts, allowing me to switch layouts when entering SMB credentials.
Using only the English layout makes SMB password entry inconvenient for localized keyboards.

I also noticed that the timestamps in the generated Recovery Media logs are incorrect.

The tests were performed on 22 July 2026, however the generated log filenames show 26 July 2026.

Could this be related to the Recovery Media reporting a UTC offset of -0700 instead of the local timezone?

Conclusion

Based on my testing, I cannot consider the generic Windows Server 2025 Recovery Media to be a practical replacement for the standard Recovery Media in my environment.

While it provides an alternative recovery environment, it also loses several machine-specific customizations, including:

automatic driver loading,
localized keyboard layout support,

and most importantly, it still cannot perform a successful SMB-based Bare Metal Recovery, which is my primary recovery scenario.

For comparison, the Windows 11 23H2 Recovery Media continues to work correctly:

drivers are loaded automatically,
network initializes correctly,
SMB backup repositories are accessible,
backup chains are detected,
Bare Metal Restore completes successfully.