The error 0x80780049 (ID 517) reported by Windows Server Backup may be due to running a Windows Server 2012 (incl. R2) VM on a Server 2012 (R2) host.   A much better solution is to use BackupChain instead of Windows Server Backup, for many reasons, such as the additional feature set.   To fix your […]

Below is a list of Windows Server 2012 updates and their links to knowledge base articles. The hotfixes below are important for Failover Clusters arrangements: Date of hotfix Knowledge Base Details Name Affected Components Why you need to install this update Jan. 15, 2014 KB2913695(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2913695/ ) OffloadWrite is doing PrepareForCriticalIo for the whole VHD in […]

Real time or near real-time replication similar to a mirror RAID where block writes are sent over to other media or servers within very short intervals, like seconds, isn’t always a good idea. Experiments with this technology have shown that it adds challenges for disaster recovery due to the following reasons. VSS is the core in Windows […]

The following is a quick write-up about the function of Hyper-V Integration Services (HIS). The idea is to give IT admins a quick overview:   1. You need to update Hyper-V Integration Services (HIS) inside each VM whenever you run Windows Update on the host Read this post: It’s not automatic!   2. Without up-to-date […]

In case you receive this kind of error: ‘Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer’ is in failed state, Writer Failure code: 0x800423f3 This error basically means Hyper-V has failed in some way. The easiest next step is to visit //backupchain.com and download VssDiag, a tool provided by BackupChain for its backup software. Enter the time when the error […]

The table below compares all nine editions of Windows Server 2012 available today:       Windows Server® 2012 Products and Editions Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Windows Server 2012 Standard Windows Server 2012 Essentials Windows Server 2012 Foundation Microsoft Hyper-V® Server 2012 Windows Storage Server 2012 Standard Windows Storage Server 2012 Workgroup Windows MultiPoint Server 2012 Premium Windows […]

Microsoft Windows Server 2012, also known as Microsoft Windows Server 8, is an operating system of the Windows series of the software developer company Microsoft. Server 2012 is the successor of Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows 8 is the workstation version of Server 2012 and was released on September 4, 2012. Windows Server 2012 R2 […]

Why Hyper-V May Be Slow on a RAID Striped RAID combines several hard drives into one by storing consecutive blocks on the next hard drive in the array. For example, if you use four hard drives in a striped array block #1 and #5 are on hard drive #1, block #2 and #6 are on […]

VSS_E_FLUSH_WRITES_TIMEOUT is a VSS timeout error and may be reported by your backup software using the code  0x80042313 when using the writer “Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer” or when backing up VMware. However, this VSS timeout error may occur on hosts without Hyper-V as well. Try the following options to fix VSS_E_FLUSH_WRITES_TIMEOUT:   Repair Strategy #1 Using […]

  The main files used by Hyper-V are: XML files contain VM configuration details BIN files store the memory of a VM when a snapshot was taken VSV file is the VM’s saved state AVHD and AVHDX files are differencing virtual disks, commonly used for snapshots and Hyper-V checkpoints VHD and VHDX are virtual disks […]