ShadowProtect 3.x General Information ReadMe
StorageCraft ShadowProtect 3.5 Server Edition / Small Business Server Edition / Desktop Edition
Copyright 2009 StorageCraft Technology Corporation. All rights reserved.
The current version of StorageCraft ShadowProtect is: 3.5.1
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GENERAL INFORMATION
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This file contains additional information to supplement the manual. Please read all the sections before you proceed with the installation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1. System Requirements
2. Installing ShadowProtect
3. Activating ShadowProtect
4. Features/Enhancements
5. General Usage Notes
6. 3.5 Resolved Issues
1. System Requirements
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Minimum System Requirements
§ Must meet the minimum operating system requirements
§ Memory: At least 256 MB of RAM
§ Hard Disk: 12 MB of free space
§ CD-ROM or DVD drive
Supported Operating Systems
ShadowProtect supports Windows 32-or 64-bit operating systems
§ Windows Server 2008 R2
§ Windows Server 2008
§ Windows Small Business Server 2008
§ Windows EBS Server 2008
§ Windows Server 2003
§ Windows Small Business Server 2003
§ Windows 2000 Server/Advanced Server (SP4 or above)
§ Windows Small Business Server 2000
§ Windows 7
§ Windows Vista Home Basic
§ Windows Vista Home Premium
§ Windows Vista Ultimate
§ Windows Vista Enterprise
§ Windows Vista Business
§ Windows XP Media Center
§ Windows XP Professional (SP2 or above)
§ Windows XP Home (SP2 or above)
NOTE: The ShadowProtect Small Business Edition will only install on a Small Business Server.
Supported File Systems/Disk types
ShadowProtect Editions support the following File Systems: FAT16, FAT16X, FAT32, FAT32X, NTFS, GPT Disks, and Dynamic Disks.
Supported Storage Media
ShadowProtect supports the following storage media: disk drives including network drives, SAN, NAS, iSCSI, SCSI, USB or Firewire and optical media such as CD/DVD/Blu-Ray.
2. Installing ShadowProtect
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**You can install ShadowProtect 3.5 over an existing 3.x install**
** Your current job definitions will be preserved in the new release **
** To upgrade from exiting 2.x versions. Perform the following steps
a. Record the details of each ShadowProtect job.
b. If you are under a maintenance contract obtain your free 3.x license key from your reseller.
c. Un-install ShadowProtect.
d. Re-boot.
e. Install the new ShadowProtect release.
f. Re-boot.
g. Activate new 3.x License.
h. Recreate jobs as previous definition.
Before you install ShadowProtect, make sure you have reviewed the system requirements for installing ShadowProtect.
To Install ShadowProtect
1. Insert the ShadowProtect CD into the media drive of the computer.
If CD auto-run is enabled, the ShadowProtect installation page will launch automatically.
2. If the CD auto-run is not enabled, browse the ShadowProtect CD. Locate and run the ShadowProtect installation program named INSTALL_SHADOWPROTECT_SERVER_EDITION.CMD. If you want to install the Small Business Editon, select INSTALL_SHADOWPROTECT_SBS_EDITION.CMD To install the desktop Edition select INSTALL_SHADOWPROTECT_DESKTOP_EDITION.CMD.
3. Click Next on the setup Installation Wizard welcome screen.
4. ShadowProtect License Agreement.
You must accept the ShadowProtect License Agreement to install ShadowProtect. Without accepting the ShadowProtect License Agreement you cannot proceed with the installation. If you wish to print out the License Agreement, click Print. If you accept the License Agreement, select the radio button indicating “I accept the license agreement.” Then click Next.
If you do not accept the ShadowProtect License Agreement, click Cancel to abort the installation.
5. Select the type of setup. If you select Complete all components will be installed. Selecting Custom will allow you choose what components to install. Click Next
6. By default, ShadowProtect will be installed in “C:\Program Files\StorageCraft\ShadowProtect\.”
You may change the installation location by clicking the Change button and browsing to the location you wish to install ShadowProtect.
7. The installation summary dialog will appear. If you need to make changes to the installation, click Back and make changes. Click Install to begin the installation.
8. A dialog box will appear indicating ShadowProtect installation is complete. Click Finish.
9. You will be prompted to restart your computer for the configuration changes to take effect. Click Yes to restart your computer now. Click No to restart your computer later.
**You must reboot your computer before you use ShadowProtect**
10. Remove the ShadowProtect CD from the media drive.
3. ACTIVATING ShadowProtect
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You will need to activate ShadowProtect before the trial period ends. Each time you take a backup, the number of days left in your trial period will be displayed in the history. To activate ShadowProtect click Help -> Product Registration. You can optionally type in the Customer Name. Type in the Serial Number, select the Automatic online activation and click the Activate button.
** If you receive an error indicating that the StorageCraft Activation server cannot communicate with our system and you access the internet through a firewall, ensure that the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is not disabled by your firewall.**
Trial Version
If you are installing the Trial Version of ShadowProtect, you can install all the applications and create backup image files of system and data volumes. You can also restore data volumes or specific files and folders. You will not be able to restore the system volume, because the StorageCraft Recovery Environment is not made available with the Trial Version. Your Trial Version will expire and cease to operate after the trial period. However, you can purchase ShadowProtect at any time and upgrade your Trial Version to a Full Version without reinstalling the software.
Evaluation Version
If you are installing the Evaluation Version of ShadowProtect, you can install all the applications and create backup image files of system and data volumes. You can also restore system volumes, data volumes or specific files and folders.
The Evaluation Version is made available on CD or as an .ISO image. The StorageCraft Recovery Environment is made available with the Evaluation Version, enabling you to restore the system volumes as well enabling you to create backup image files from the Recovery Environment.
Your Evaluation Version will expire and cease to operate after the evaluation period. However, you can purchase ShadowProtect at any time and turn your Evaluation Version into the Full Version.
ShadowProtect Licensing
ShadowProtect licensing is based on the number of operating systems you are protecting using the software. If you are using ShadowProtect to backup 100 computers, you will require 100 licenses. Please review the End User License Agreement for further clarification.
4. Features/Enhancements
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ShadowProtect version 3.5
§ The ShadowProtect tray icon now emits balloon notification messages whenever a task (backup, restore, etc) has completed. The notification ballon messages are only displayed if the main ShadowProtect window is minimized or if it's not in the foreground or if the selected view isn't Backup Jobs or Backup History. The notification ballon messages include the task status and source and destination. Clicking on the notification balloon message makes the main ShadowProtect window active and switches the view to Backup History and opens the corresponding task's detailed log.
§ The email notification feature now supports additional authentication methods (Plain, AUTH Login, Cram MD5 and NTLM), as well as SSL with any of these methods (which means you can configure notifications with services such as Google Mail - for Gmail use server smtp.gmail.com, port 465, use SSL, use either Plain or Login authentication, and enter your gmail email SMTP account name (minus the @gmail.com), address (with the @gmail.com), and password). Users can also specify if they want to append custom text to the email subject (such as a company name in cases where you manage services for clients from many companies) and pre-pended to the body of the email. The Agent Options dialog now has a "Test Email" button.
§ A new Agent Option has been added which enables users to specify, in seconds, am amount of time they want the ShadowProtect Agent (which is the ShadowProtectSvc.exe NT service) to wait before beginning a backup after the service has started. The intent of this feature is to make it possible for users to prevent backups from beginning immediately after their machine has booted.
§ A new Agent Option has been added which enables users to specify the names of VSS writers which should be excluded from VSS-based backups. The effect of this is that the specified writers will not be quiesced by VSS. Their data will still be backed up, but it will be captured in an in-use state rather than a quiesced state. One use for this would be to exclude a non-essential writer from the VSS process, particularly spit writers, thereby reducing the size of the image file. Essential VSS Writers (such as SQL, Exchange, IIS, NTDS) should, generally, not be excluded.
§ A new option to ignore read failures (and continue the backup) now exists in the backup job wizard. Users whose drives are failing (where the hardware fails to return read requests) can now back up their data. Backup image files will contain zeroes for those sectors which could not be read. This option is off, by default, which means that if a backup fails to read, the backup itself will fail. The intent is that you configure email notification and are notified when your hardware begins to fail. You then intercede and change this setting (edit your job - check the "ignore read failures" box) and take a backup. The backup will then succeed. And, this would be a good time to buy a new hard drive. If you want to override this and always enable backups despite read failures, then simply create a system environment variable named SP_SBVOL_IGNORE_READ_ERRORS with any value (such as 1) and restart the ShadowProtect Service.
§ On successful backup, if the user has specified a post-backup command containing the text $SPFILES then this text $SPFILES will be substitued with the text of the full paths to each of the new backup files created by the backup job, delimited with the | character. If you use this option, then it is highly recommended that you always enclose this text in quotes "$SPFILES" when you enter it in the post-backup command's edit box. This text substitution makes it possible for you to pass the list of new image files as a parameter to the command you wish to execute. Search the StorageCraft forums for posts with the tag PostBackupVerify for a sample script that you can use to verify (and email on failure) any newly-created backups.
§ The Boot Configuration tool in the bootable-CD ShadowProtect Recovery Environment has been extended. This is an advanced tool and generally is only necessary for very complex multi-boot systems.
§ The Hardware Independent Restore (HIR) functionality in the bootable-CD ShadowProtect Recovery Environment now has an additional Advanced Option which enables users to add specific .INF files to the list of additional directories and files to be considered by HIR when it attempts to find the best drivers for the hardware. The old option, to add directories, still exists. When a directory is added to the HIR Advanced Options list, drivers in that directory will be considered by HIR. However, if HIR finds another driver (on the target volume itself, for instance) which is a better match for the hardware, then HIR will install the best matching driver. However, when a specific file is added to the list, it will be given precedence over all other matching drivers found by HIR. This will make it easier for users, who are certain they have the correct storage miniport driver, to force HIR to install their specific storage driver. Just point to its specific INF file.
§ The Hardware Independent Restore (HIR) functionality in the bootable-CD ShadowProtect Recovery Environment now has an additional Advanced Option which enables users to specify if they want the target volume's Windows Activation to be Deactivated. It has been found that occasionally after an HIR restore, the user will boot and login and immediately be logged back out, without any prompt or opportunity to reactivate their Windows installation. By checking this Deactivate box, users in such a situation will be prompted to re-activate their Windows installation.
ShadowProtect version 3.4
§ Added ability to import and export nodes in the network view.
§ Added ability to generate an MD5 file to allow external file verification.
§ Added a new scripting interface for creating/modifying backup jobs.
§ Added support for the Portuguese language
§ ImageManager has been updated to auto verify and periodically re-verify image files. This is an ImageManager only component.
§ A new tool (ISOTool.exe) which can burn CD-R discs using a source .ISO file is now installed as part of the product. Although there are no shortcuts to this too, you can simply browse to the ShadowProtect program files directory and execute it directly. This tool can be used to burn the downloaded ShadowProtect Recovery Environment CD .ISO file to a CD-R disc, thereby creating the bootable recovery CD.
ShadowProtect version 3.3
§ Shrink volume (for restoring to smaller volumes)
§ Support for additional languages (Supported languages are English,French,German and Japanese)
§ ShadowProtect’s recommended recovery environment is now based on Vista SP1
ShadowProtect version 3.2
§ 64-bit support
§ Enhanced retention policy for removable drives
For a complete list of changes see section 6 3.5 Issues Resolved.
5. GENERAL USAGE NOTES
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- ShadowProtect tracks sector changes when taking incremental backups. Disable any disk defrag software you may have when incremental backups are taken or scheduled. Since disk defrag software changes sectors, the incremental backup may be larger than expected especially if the disk is severely fragmented.
**To ensure successful implementation and testing please read the Knowledge base article “ShadowProtect Pre-Requisites Checklist.doc”**
- Testing the StorageCraft Recovery Environment CD
You should test the StorageCraft Recovery Environment to ensure that it runs properly on your computer. To do this, boot the StorageCraft Recovery Environment from the ShadowProtect CD.
If the StorageCraft Recovery Environment boots and runs as expected, then you will be prepared to perform ShadowProtect operations from the Recovery Environment in the event the system does not boot or you need to restore a system volume from a backup image file or you wish to create cold state backup images using the Recovery Environment.
If the StorageCraft Recovery Environment does not boot or run as expected, you should investigate the following issues:
· The system you are booting the recovery environment from must be configured to boot from the CD.
· Try both the Recommended and Legacy boot options. There are additional drivers in the Legacy boot mode.
· You do not have the necessary network interface card (NIC) drivers to access the network. Contact StorageCraft Technical Support by sending an email to support@storagecraft.com so that the necessary NIC drivers can be included in subsequent builds of ShadowProtect.
· You do not have the necessary storage drivers to access a storage device on the computer. You may need to load storage drivers during boot time. During the initial boot phase of the Legacy XP/2003 StorageCraft Recovery Environment, you will be prompted to hit F6 to add storage drivers. You will then be prompted to load the storage driver from diskette. It is a good idea to keep necessary storage drivers on a diskette that is available in the event you need to boot the ShadowProtect CD to run from the Recovery Environment. The storage drives must be in the textsetup.oem format for loading into the Legacy Recovery Environment. If you have booted the Recommended boot option(Vista Recovery Environment), you can dynamically load the required storage drivers by providing the directory where the drivers are located. The driver files for the Recommended Recovery Environment must be Vista drivers in the .inf and .sys format. Contact StorageCraft Technical Support by sending an email to support@storageCraft.com so that the necessary storage drivers can be included in subsequent builds of ShadowProtect.
The ShadowProtect CD, contains the StorageCraft Recovery Environment which is used as a boot disk for restoring a backup image to the system volume. Be sure to store the CD in a safe place for use in the event that a bare metal recovery of your computer is required.
6. 3.5 Issues Resolved
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ShadowProtect version 3.5
§ Fix to an issue which would cause the ShadowProtect.exe GUI to not automatically connect to the last-connected ShadowProtectSvc.exe agent (NT service) after upgrading. Users had to click on "Network View" and then in the Network View they had to click on the Connect button. This issue would only occur once, after an upgrade install.
§ Fix for a hang in the ShadowProect Service (ShadowProtectSvc.exe) which occurs when the Microsoft Volume Shadowcopy Service (VSS) is in a bad state. Rather than hanging, the service now continues to perform a snapshot-based backup, just without the involvement of VSS.
§ Fix for an issue in sbrun.exe which could cause backups to network shares to fail.
§ Fix to post-restore code which patches the volume boot record incorrectly for unrecognized file systems (such as would occur if you backed up an encrypted volume from the WinPE environment and then restored that backup).
§ Fix to eliminate NTDS event log errors occurring after 64 snapshots fill up the NTDS VSS writer's status log. These errors didn't actually cause any problem but they did confuse some users and so we took the steps necessary to eliminate such log entries.
§ Fix to stcvsm.sys for blue screens (BSODs) occurring on Win7 RTM.
§ Fix to the post-restore BCD patching code.
§ Fix to the installer dealing with registration of the VSnapVSS.exe NT service on upgrade. On some upgrades, users had problems because this service was not registered.
§ Fixed an issue which caused KeyFile.exe and KeyFileMaker.exe to crash when run on Windows Server 2008.
§ Fixed an issue which occasionally caused ShadowProtect to attempt to use the VSS framework when creating a backup on a Windows 2000 platform. VSS does not exist on Windows 2000.
§ Fixed an issue which sometimes caused the ShadowProtect Service (ShadowProtectSvc.exe) to crash on startup if a mirrored dynamic disk volume was present.
§ Fixed an issue in which most of the time the execution completion status of the post-backup job was not logged in the task detail log.
§ When editing a job, if the user checked the "Backup Now" box at the end of the wizard, the backup job would make a new full backup even if it was a job which supported incrementals. This has been fixed such that an incremental will be attempted if at all possible, and if not, then a base will be created.
§ Optimized image chain resolution code which could cause image.exe or SBMntWiz.exe to run out of memory in cases where a user attempts to resolve the chain of dependent image files for a specified image file (this happens automatically during a mount operation, for instance) of an image in a large image set in which collapses have been performed yet no files deleted after collapse.
ShadowProtect version 3.4
§ Fixed issue where the date display options could be interpreted incorrectly if the system was not set to US English.
§ Fixed a very rare issue where scheduled backups didn’t run properly.
§ Fixed issue where using Pre/Post/Finish backup commands in a backup didn’t properly report to the ShadowProtect log files.
§ Fixed a crash on Vista in Backup/Edit job wizard when closing the Advanced options dialog.
§ Fixed an issue where path name with 38 characters would not display image files.
§ Fixed an issue where a DiffGen backup would fail with "Set Guid Mismatch" error. This only occurred for a job with the option "Second and subsequent full backups are differentials" selected which had been edited prior to the attempted DiffGen backup.
§ Fixed an issue where retention policy would not remove old files stored on some NAS devices.
§ Fixed slow backup speed to an Iomega REV drive.
§ Added a retry for files that could not be deleted by the retention policy because they were in use. Also, included retention policy results in log file.
§ Execution of missed backups now applies to service resuming from a suspended state as well as service starting.
§ Added a delay of 60 seconds before starting backup jobs when the ShadowProtect service is started or resumed.
§ Fixed FAT16/FAT32 mounting issue
§ Fixed FAT16/FAT32 snapshot issue on Vista+
§ Fixed rare blue screen at shutdown time on Vista
§ Fixed Sophos AntiVirus interop issue (resulted in a system hang)
ShadowProtect version 3.3
§ Setting the retention policy to remove an old chain on a network destination before creating the next full image did not remove the chain.
§ When using the Now option in the Backup Wizard, the radio buttons for Full and Differential could get in a state where both were selected.
§ When using the Later option to create a backup job to run once, it could run a second time after the ShadowProtect service was restarted.
§ stcvsm.sys in-memory data structures for the fast incremental tracking feature now only takes 1/4th the memory. It wasn’t taking much memory in the first place but this has been enhanced.
ShadowProtect version 3.2
§ Flush registry keys on write so they will be in the next snapshot.
§ Fixed a bug where changing the destination of the backup job would cause the next DiffGen to fail.
§ Fixed a bug that could occur under certain circumstances after the ShadowProtect service was restarted. The next base or VSS incremental was scheduled instead of an incremental backup.
§ Fixed hang during backup job caused by interop issues with 3rd party applications.
§ Fixed a bug where .spk files were written for some Weekly or Monthly jobs.
§ Fixed hang during backup job caused by an empty password apparently from failed registry read.
§ Enhanced retention policy to allow delete before backup, remove old files when rotating media in destination.
§ Fixed handle leak when flushing registry writes.
§ Fixed a bug when service holds the destination object's drive locked thus denying removal of the drive.
§ Fixed a bug when mbr and/or first track can't be restored if an image file is password protected.
§ Decreased time to discover/enumerate disks and volumes in some cases ( when removable media is not present in the drive )
§ Fixed crash when editing monthly schedule
§ Added retry for auto activation error
§ Custom schedules created using scripts are not displayed.
§ Hide Activate button after successful activation
§ Added option when right clicking on a job to copy job properties to a file (helpful for troubleshooting)
§ Fixed look of the tab control in the advanced backup options dialog.
§ Fixed connection issues in Vista.
§ Added warning notification on quit if any task is still running.
§ Fixed keyboard navigation issues.
§ Fixed control's tab order in dialogs.
§ Added ability to invoke context menu using keyboard.
§ Fixed display of summary information for directories on a network share
§ Collapse now works for SAMBA shares
§ Added option to keep redundant collapse files for users that only transfer collapse daily files
§ Fixed problem where GUI would not connect to a running service (should only fail if service is not running)
§ Fixed bug where file renamed from *.spi to *-cd.spi caused orphaned files if *-cd.spi file was later removed.
§ Recognize image files transported to remote location that are given a temporary name until transfer completes.
§ Fixed client connection failure during service startup while directory entries and database are synchronized.
§ Fixed bug where attempting to stop the service during startup would sometimes fail.
§ Added cleanup policy for collapse daily (-cd) and collapse weekly (-cw) files.
§ Added support for x64.
§ Fixed bug where invalid directory names were reported as errors but still added to list of watch directories.
§ Added ability to browse network locations.
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Copyright 2009 StorageCraft Technology Corporation. All rights reserved. This Software and Documentation are copyrighted. Ownership of the ShadowProtect Server Edition Version 3.5 Software is reserved to StorageCraft Technology Corporation. StorageCraft, the StorageCraft logo and the ShadowProtect Server Edition logo are trademarks of StorageCraft Technology Corporation. ShadowProtect Server Edition is a trademark of StorageCraft Technology Corporation in the United States and elsewhere. All other brands and product names are or may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
