When Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) performs a parallel backup operation on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Vista, or Windows Server 2008, the operation may fail. When this issue occurs, the VSS writers are in a “corrupted” state, and the VSS writers return the following error message:

0×80042319
VSS_E_WRITER_NOT_RESPONDING

For example, you may encounter this issue when you use System Center Data Protection Manager to perform a parallel backup operation.

Consider the following scenario:

• You create a volume that covers one or more disks on a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.
• A Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) hardware provider tries to create a snapshot of the volume. However, an exception occurs and the action is unsuccessful.

In this scenario, you are cannot perform certain operations on the disks. The following common disk-related operations that you perform may fail:

• You back up one of these disks by using a backup application such as System Center Date Protection Manager (DPM).
• One of these disks is used as a shared disk in a Windows failover cluster. However, you cannot bring the shared disk online.
• You run an application that calls the ResourceControl callback function together with the CLUSCTL_RESOURCE_STORAGE_GET_DISK_INFO_EX resource control code against these disks. Then, the application returns error code 1168.

When the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) hardware provider takes more than three minutes to clean up a non-persistent snapshot set, the operation is aborted by VSS. Therefore, the hardware provider has insufficient time to delete all non-persistent snapshots. When this problem occurs, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

• The hardware provider is in a bad state.
• The destination LUNs are in an inconsistent state.
• In the next VSS operations, the provider is vetoed and SCSI errors occur.
• In Device Manager, an exclamation point (!) is displayed in front of a disk device to state that the disk device does not work correctly.

Note: This issue usually occurs if the snapshot set has multiple logical unit number (LUN) devices.

Consider the following scenario:

• You are running a Windows Server 2008-based or Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1)-based system.
• On this system, an application or service calls Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) management interface APIs.
• These VSS management interface APIs are called while many snapshot replications are occurring.
• The snapshot replications are in protection mode.

In this scenario, the VSS management interface APIs encounter performance issues, or these APIs time out. Therefore, applications that call these APIs also encounter performance issues or job failures.

For example, assume that you perform a Bare Metal Restore (BMR) for a Windows Small Business Server (Windows SBS) 2008-based system. Then, you use Windows Server Backup (WSB) to perform a backup operation after the BMR operation. In this situation, the first attempt fails and generates the following error message:

Creation of the shared protection point timed out. Unknown error (0×81000101)

When you start multiple Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) requestor instances with VSS hardware provider to delete snapshots in Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista SP1 systems, each VSS requestor instance may take an increasingly longer time to finish. Eventually, the VSS requestor instances fail. Additionally, the VSS hardware provider database increases with each duplicated snapshot.

Volume Shadow Copy Service: A feature in recent versions of Microsoft Windows that allows taking manual or automatic backup copies or snapshots of a file or folder on a specific volume at a specific point in time.

In Windows Vista Enterprise, you use the Distributed File System (DFS) together with the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). However, VSS does not show whether the DFS path is the same as the physical path. For example, assume that the DFS path is as follows:

\\myfiles\storage\[alias [file:///\\myfiles\storage\%3calias]]

Assume that the physical path is as follows:

\\severname\FSXX\[alias [file:///\\severname\FSXX\%3calias]]

In this example, VSS does not show whether the alias directory of the DFS path is the same as the alias directory of the physical path.

If you install Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS) 2005 on a computer that is running Windows Vista, you cannot host a VSS Web service.

When you use the Windows Vista Back Up Files wizard, recorded TV program files (.dvr-ms) are not backed up. This issue also occurs when you use any other backup solution that relies on the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) in Windows Vista.