How to Remove an Unwanted VSS Provider (4033223)

You are troubleshooting transfers from an Agent or even sluggish Core performance. You suspect that an unecessary VSS provider has been inadvertently installed on the system. You want to quickly clarify if it is a part of the issue you are facing.

To resolve this issue, you need to determine what unnecessary VSS providers are present, remove them and revert to the previous status (if necessary).

Open an elevated Command Prompt and type

vssadmin list providers

After you get the list of providers, identify the unnecessary ones (i.e. ‘Dell EqualLogic VSS HW Provider’) now got to the Registry

1. Open Regedit
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VSS\Providers\
3. Expand Providers and you should see three keys: Enum, and two GUID’s (Long strings of letters and numbers).
4. Click on the top GUID in the list and in the right-hand pane the Default string should have the name of the provider. If not check the other GUID.
5. Once you find the right GUID export the whole GUID and export it so you can revert the operation if needed.
6. Delete the unnecessary provider GUID subkey and close the registry
7. Open Windows services and restart the “Volume Shadow Copy” service. It may be stopped to begin with, that’s okay.
8. Check and see if the provider is gone from: vssadmin list providers
9. Reboot the server when next possible.

If for some reason you need to revert to the initial state, import the previously exported registry subkey and bounce the Volume Shadow Copy service.

Windows Registry Disclaimer:

Quest does not provide support for problems that arise from improper modification of the registry. The Windows registry contains information critical to your computer and applications. Make sure you back up the registry before modifying it. For more information on the Windows Registry Editor and how to back up and restore it, refer to Microsoft Article ID 256986 “Description of the Microsoft Windows registry” at Microsoft Support.