ABR10 Workstation (v11105) - scheduler does not work with VMware Workstation 'shared folders'

Mapping doesn't work for service because services don't know about your mapped drive. (If you were connecting to the machine remotely, you would not see them as well). You can select UNC path as the destination, to make it work in scheduled mode, however it's a bit tricky, because vwmare shared folders, unlike normal shared folders, seem not to be browsable. You need to enter \\.host\shared folders\whatever manually into the path field and then press ok.

dev-anon Thanks for your helpful comment.

I have already tried to use the UNC path but I am having security problems. ABR10 asks me repeatably to specify access credentials to use \\.host\Shared Folders\backups I don't see why this should be a problem for ABR10 since I can browse this UNC quite happily in Windows Explorer using the credentials I gave to ABR10. I suspect the error message is masking some other internal problem.

What I do not understand is why it works when I submit manually but fails when I use the scheduler. Surely the same engine will execute the actual backup whichever way the job is generated?

I assume these jobs/scripts are saved somewhere (possibly as XML files) and that I might be able edit them with Notepad or somesuch. I looked in C:\Documents & Settings\ ... \ All Users\ ... (where I read that they were kept) but I can't see anything there. Any ideas anyone ??

It would be nice if someone from Acronis would acknowledge my posts and perhaps offer some advice!

I entered any characters to make the password prompt close and it worked.

Surely the same engine will execute the actual backup whichever way the job is generated?

It seems that when you connect directly and run task manually it works in the context of the current user and thus can see mapped drives and write to them, but when you schedule the task, it runs in the context of some service(scheduler?) and can't see mapped drives.

Hello all,

Thank you for using [[http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/ | Acronis Corporate Products]]

In Backup and Recovery 10.0 the backup plans are located at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\Policies and  C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\MMS\PolicyStatistics.

But you don't need to change these files.

When you map a drive, it becomes mapped only under your Windows account. Acronis program runs its tasks using the system account and so it is sometimes impossible to locate your mapped drive (especially when you are logged off). Please use a full UNC path (e.g. \\server\share\) instead of a mapped drive. Also you can use the IP address (e.g. \\IP address\share).

Actually, when you create a backup plan, the credentials to get the access to the network share should be indicated, and they are included into the backup plan. Scheduled task should run without additional requirement for the credentials.

That's why I can suggest you to do the following:

1) Delete the present task.

2) Restart Acronis scheduler:

- Download a special Acronis utility;
- Start the Command Prompt from Start -> Programs -> Accessories menu;
- Run the following commands in the folder you saved the file to:

schedmgr task zap
schedmgr service stop
schedmgr service uninstall
schedmgr service install
schedmgr service start

This should delete all Acronis tasks on the PC.

3) Create a new backup plan specifying the destination location using the full UNC path or the IP address.

4) See if the issue remains.

Thank you.

Hello Oleg

Thanks for your comments.  I have already deleted the jobs that did not work, so I have not downloaded the utility.

It is nice to know where the Acronis ABR10 jobs are stored but as all the details are encrypted it's not much use for editing/debug purposes!  I suppose Acronis has to do this as you are storing access credentials in there.  Too bad.

Back to my original problem - ABR10 SCHEDULED TASKS WILL NOT BACKUP TO OR FROM VMWARE WORKSTATION SHARED FOLDERS.  As Dev-Anon and you have pointed out this is because the scheduled jobs use a system service and are unable to see these folders, even if one uses UNC names.  This is a real PITA!  I don't know whether it is technically possible to enable this functionality by liaising with VMware  -  if so, please can you forward this comment to the developers wish list.

Meanwhile for those of us in the real world there is a WORKAROUND.  Basically you must set up the Linux host as a file server (eg with Samba) and share the folder(s) over the network and then access them via guest-to-host networking. It's a pain to set up and duplicates the functionality of the Workstation Shared Folders but at least you can use these shares for backups.  It would be much easier if Acronis could fix this, perhaps in the next release?

One final point - if you view ABR10 .TIB archive files using Windows Explorer you are able to open and look inside them and retrieve files etc., which is really handy.  Interestingly you can also do this to .TIB archives stored in the VMware Shared Folders but if you access the same .TIB archives via the Network Share route it seems unable to open them!  (I don't know why and, quite frankly, right now, I don't care either!).  At least my backups are finally working.

Nicholas Robinson wrote:

As Dev-Anon and you have pointed out this is because the scheduled jobs use a system service and are unable to see these folders, even if one uses UNC names.

I've only commented about using mapped drive - it doesn't work. I was able to schedule the task using UNC path, although it doesn't show in folder tree, but was accepted if entered in 'path' field.