Volume Shadow Copy Service Overview

The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) is a set of COM APIs that implement a framework to allow volume backups to be performed while applications on a system continue to write to the volumes.

VSS provides a consistent interface that allows coordination between user applications that update data on disk (writers) and those that back up applications (requesters).


The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) captures and copies stable images for backup on running systems, particularly servers, without unduly degrading the performance and stability of the services they provide.

The VSS solution is designed to enable developers to create services (writers) that can be effectively backed up by any vendor's backup application using VSS (requesters).  VSS is the recommended Snapshot method on Windows 2003 and newer.


To troubleshoot Volume Shadow Copy Service and enable debug tracing features:


The Microsoft article below will collect debugs for Volume Shadow Copy Service:

How to enable the Volume Shadow Copy service's debug tracing features in Microsoft Windows Server 2003
 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887013

To read the Debug Logs, Install the Tool:

Systems Management Server 2003 Toolkit 2
 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sms/bb676787.aspx