After converting from Hyper-V to VMWare, it’s entirely possible you may encounter an error which says Failed to prepare guest for hot backup. Error: VSSControl: -2147212529 Backup job failed. This is due to a 3rd party, or an incompatible VSS provider component existing on the virtual server. Likely, this will be the one installed from the Hyper-V tools.

The easiest way to resolve this issue is to remove the offending provider.

How to check the providers installed⌗

This is relatively easy:

  1. Open your command prompt as admin
  2. Type vssadmin list providers
  3. The first one will likely be ‘Hyper-V IC Software Shadow Copy Provider’
  4. Take note of the Provider ID
  5. Confirm this is the provider causing the error by going to Event Viewer, and looking for Event ID 12292 or 22. In the general tab of that event, you’ll see the provider ID listed.

Removing the faulty provider⌗

  1. Open up your regedit
  2. Backup HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\VSS\Providers\ and then inside that same folder, delete the provider number that matches the faulty provider
  3. Run services.msc and restart the Volume Shadow Copy service.
  4. Run your Veeam backup and rejoice