VSS-based backups fail on a computer that is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

Consider the following scenario:

• You have a computer that is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2003.
• You use the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to perform backups of the Exchange Server environment.

In this scenario, the backup operations fail. Additionally, the following errors appear in the Application log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeIS
Event Category: Exchange VSS Writer
Event ID: 9607
Description: Error code 0x50d when preparing for backup.
Data:
0000: 42 61 63 6b 75 70 20 69 Backup i
0008: 6e 20 70 72 6f 67 72 65 n progre
0010: 73 73 2e 00 ss..

Event Type: Information
Event Source: MSExchangeIS
Event Category: Exchange VSS Writer
Event ID: 9614
Description: Exchange VSS Snapshot has aborted snapshot successfully.
Data:
0000: 41 62 6f 72 74 20 69 67 Abort ig
0008: 6e 6f 72 65 64 2e 00 nored..

This problem occurs if a VSS-based backup application aborted a previous backup, and this behavior left the Exchange Writer in an error state.

To resolve this problem, restart the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK.
2. Right-click Microsoft Exchange Information Store, and then click Restart.
3. Close the Services tool.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

Steps to reproduce the problem

1. Start a VSS-based backup operation.
2. Have the VSS Requestor abort the backup by calling IVssBackupComponents::AbortBackup before the call to IVssBackupComponents::DoSnapshotSet.
3. Try to start another VSS-based backup. You experience the problem that is described in the "Symptoms" section.