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Dell NetWorker 19.9 Administration Guide

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Windows backup considerations

Use the NetWorker software to backup Windows file systems. NetWorker Module for Microsoft (NMM) provides VSS-based backup and recovery of the Windows operating system, and Microsoft server applications, for example, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft SharePoint Services. The NetWorker Module for Microsoft Administration Guide provides more information about the NMM product.

Table 1. Backup considerations for Windows features
Windows Feature Backup considerations
Event logs—Used for troubleshooting hardware problems as well as monitoring security conditions, and system and application software problems.

To back up event log files, configure a file system
backup that includes the C:\Windows\system32\winevt
\logs folder.

The size of a recovered event log might be smaller than
the backup size. This is a characteristic of Windows event logs
and does not cause any data loss or change of data. You can
use Microsoft Event Viewer to view the recovered, smaller log
file. NetWorker backs up all event log files when more than one
active event log is marked for backup (for example,
SecEvent.Evt and SysEvent.Evt). You can recover event logs
to a location that differs from the location at the time of the
backup. You cannot recover event logs files that were on an
NTFS partition at the time of the backup to an FAT16 or FAT32
partition.
Encrypted File System (EFS)—Allows NTFS files to be stored in encrypted format. A user without the private key to the file cannot access the file. NetWorker will not encrypt or compress a file already encrypted by Windows. Do not use AES encryption when you backup EFS encrypted files.

Files can become unusable if the encryption keys
change on the domain controller. For example, when you move
the domain controller from one computer to another or the
domain controller failures.

NetWorker does not backup the encryption keys, or
keep a copy of the keys to ensure a successful recovery of
EFS encrypted files to an EFS that you reinstall after a disaster.

When recovering encrypted files to an encrypted folder
that has been removed, consider the following:

  • If you recover the encrypted files and the encrypted folder, the recovered folder and files are all encrypted.
  • If you recover only individual encrypted files (but do not recover the encrypted folder that contains them) the individual recovered files are encrypted but the re-created folder is not encrypted. Windows documentation provides instructions on encrypting the re-created folder.
  • Windows EFS encrypted data is backed up and recovered in its encrypted state.
Internet Information Server (IIS)— A web server that enables the publication of information on the Internet or a corporate intranet by using HTTP. NetWorker uses the active metabase to back up IIS and can restore the backup versions to the metabase location. NetWorker supports the recover of the metabase to the default location %SystemRoot%\system32\inetsrv\MetaBase.bin or in a location that you specify in the registry. The Microsoft documentation provides information about how to create a registry key that specifies an alternate metabase location.
Sparse files— Enables a program to create huge files without actually committing disk space for every byte. NetWorker provides complete backup and recovery support for sparse files.
Windows Print Queues NetWorker backs up and recovers print queues as a part of the file system backup. During a recover operation, you may have to restart the host depending on the status of the print queue at the time of the backup.
Disk quota database The WINDOWS ROLES AND FEATURES save set contains the disk quota database. During a backup operation, NetWorker creates temporary files to store the disk quota database settings in the root directory of each drive on the client.
NOTE:To backup the disk quota database, the local system account must have full control permissions on the local drive, otherwise a backup fails with an error message similar to the following: Failed to write to quota file, 0x80070005
POSIX compliance

NetWorker performs case sensitive backup and
recovery operations. During a recovery operation on a Windows
host, NetWorker may create multiple files with the same name
but different cases.

For example, you back up a file on a Windows host that is named temp.txt. The file is later deleted and created with a new file named Temp.txt. When you select the temp.txt file for recovery, NetWorker will not overwrite the file that is named Temp.txt. You will have two identical files in the directory, one named temp.txt and the other named Temp.txt. To configure NetWorker to ignore the case of a file, you can set the system environment variable NSR_DISABLE_POSIX_CREATE=YES, which disables POSIX compliance.
Windows Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) databases The WINDOWS ROLES AND FEATURES component of the DISASTER_RECOVERY:\ save set contains the DHCP and WINS databases. Use Windows BMR recovery to perform an offline restore of these databases.
Native Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) volumes—Used as a mounted volume on designated hardware without any other parent operating system, virtual machine, or hypervisor. You can use a VHD volume as a boot volume or as a data volume. The ALL save set does not include native VHD volumes. Configure a separate client resource to backup native VHD volumes. Do not use VHD volumes as critical volumes if the volume that contains the native VHD is also a critical volume. This situation creates a conflict during a Windows BMR backup.
Windows Content Index Server (CIS) or Windows Search Index— Index the full textual contents and property values of files and documents that are stored on the local computer. The information in the index can be queried from the Windows search function, the Indexing Server query form, or a web browser. The WINDOWS ROLES AND FEATURES component of the DISASTER_RECOVERY:\ save set contains the CIS or Windows Search Index. The CIS or Windows Search is automatically regenerated on system restart.

NetWorker performs the following actions when
performing a CIS or Windows Search backup:

  • Pauses any CIS or Windows Search catalogs. You can still query a paused catalog, so the indexing functionality is no lost during the CIS or Windows Search backup.
  • Backs up all catalog files.
  • Turns on the catalogs when the backup completes.
  • CIS or Windows Search deletes the catalog folder during a backup and restores it as part of a recovery operation.

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