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do file filters work?

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got an ESXi 5.5 host

the backup mode is set to "entire machine"

i'm trying to exclude a folder

"C:\WSUS" to be precise

12.5 couldn't care less, dumps everything into the archive

i need the entire VM, but i don't care about backing up a ton of MS updates, as i can always download them

is there an easy solution to this?

 

thanks!

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Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi Tony,

You should try specifying "?:\WSUS\*" in the exclusion settings, e.g. use the wildcards. During agent-less backup there are some cases where it's not possible to detect the exact volume letter from outside since there is no access to internals of the guest OS which defines the drive letter.

If this doesn't help then please check the backup log to see if there are any warnings related to files filters present.

Another possible reason is missing or outdated VMware Tools inside the guest VM OS - without properly running VMware Tools the files filters won't work for agent-less VM backups.

Thank you.

thanks for the suggestion!

the wildcard hasn't changed anything

the VM tools are running

the phone tech support offered a solution of creating the backup from the agent side

seems to be working fine