Application Level quiescing fails on ESX 4.1 created vms when quiescing a Window (4044127)

Application Level quiescing fails on ESX 4.1 created vms when quiescing a Windows 2008 Virtual Machine.

Error Message received: “snapshot hardware configuration mismatch.Please commit …” when quiescing is selected.

Application Level quiescing fails on ESX 4.1 created vms when quiescing a Windows 2008 Virtual Machine.

Error Message received: “snapshot hardware configuration mismatch.Please commit …” when quiescing is selected.

When quiescing a Windows 2008 vm created on ESX 4.1 you may receive the following error: “snapshot hardware configuration mismatch. Please commit…” when quiescing is selected

As of VMware vSphere 4.1 , Vmware now fully supports application level quiescing through VSS.VDR though uses different quiescing mechanisms depending on the guest OS .For Application consistent quiescing on 4.1 and 2008 Vm’s to be available three conditions must be met:

1. The UUID attribute must be enabled. This is enabled by default on virtual machines created on ESX 4.1 hosts.
2. The virtual machine must use only SCSI disks.
3. The virtual machine must not use dynamic disks.

However the current VDR vss driver does not function correctly as referenced in VMware release notes linked below

This is caused by VDR variance incompatibility with di

In order to perform application consistent quiescing, install and use Vizioncore’s vzshadow_x(X86 or X64).exe following process outlined below

1.Download and install the appropriate C++ Redistributable package.

For 64-bit (x64) machines, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BD2A6171-E2D6-4230-B809-9A8D7548C1B6&displaylang=en

For 32-bit (X86) machines, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/

downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b2da534-3e03-4391-

8a4d-074b9f2bc1bf&displaylang=en

2.The installed vRanger Pro software (version 4.5 and later) contains two files, one

of which must be copied to the root directory of the machine (vm) being backed up.. These files can be found in the vRanger install:

C:\Program Files\Vizioncore\vRangerPro\VSS. Depending on your system, copy the appropriate file to the root directory of the vm.

Operating System Drive (i.e., c:\ ):

vzshadow_x64.exe (for 64-bit Operating Systems)

or

vzshadow_x86.exe (for 32-bit Operating Systems)

3.Create a directory called backupscripts.d

C:\ProgramFiles\VMware\VMwaretools\backupscripts.d\

In this directory, create a batch file called freeze.bat.

A sample batch file is shown below;

c:\vzshadow_64.exe x: (for 64-bit Operating Systems)

or

c:\vzshadow_86.exe x: (for 32-bit Operating Systems)

where “x” equals the drive that hosts the target machine -- if there are multiple

volumes on this VM, list all volumes, separated by colon and a space (: ), as in:

c:\vzshadow_x86.exe c: d: e:

4.Now you can logon to vRanger host and create a backup job and with quiescing option selected