File specification. Can include wildcard characters ? and * File caption Path to a file. The path can include environment variables or values extracted from registry keys. Is path specified recursive or limited to the directory that is specified. Alternate path in which to find the file. Files in a file group may have been copied to an alternative location by the writer. Backup should pick up the files from the alternative location instead of the original location but should restore the files to their original location Logical path for a Writer component. This logical name uses backslash as separators to form a logical namespace hierarchy Name used to identify a Writer component. May be qualified by a logical path. This provides the writer with a unique instance id that persists between backup and restore. This allows the backup application to handle multiple writer instances at restore time. Configuration information for the VSS Test Writer. How the data associated with the writer is used. Whether this writer supports timestamped components or not. Whether this writer supports new target operations or not. Whether this writer supports redirecting components at restore time. Whether this writer supports copy backups. Whether this writer supports differential backups. Whether this writer supports incremental backups. Whether this writer supports Log backups. Whether this writer supports authoritative restore. Whether this writer supports rollforward restore. Whether this writer supports component rename at restore time. Whether this writer supports multiple unsynchronized restore events. Whether verbose output is enabled. low: Messages are not printed if files are not properly restored medium: Most general messages are printed, including warnings if files are not restored high: Extremely verbose output is enabled. Whether to check that excluded files are not restored at restore time. If restoring to a location that may contain files matching the exclude list, set this to false to prevent spurious warnings. Whether to check that included files are restored at restore time. whether to delete files from original volume after snapshot is taken whether to delete partial files from original volume after snapshot is taken whether to delete differenced files from original volume after snapshot is taken Major version number of the writer. Minor version number of the writer. How restore should be performed. Includes specification of how files should be restored as well as special steps that should occur in order to complete the restore. RESTORE_IF_NONE_THERE: i.e., can restore data if it is not at the location where it was backed up from. This essentially allows data to be restored to a clean system RESTORE_IF_CAN_BE_REPLACED: Restore data if all of the files can be replaced in the orgiginal backup location. Fails if any of the files are open. If an alternate location is provided, files will be placed there if they cannot be restored to their original location. STOP_RESTART_SERVICE: stop service (service attribute must be specified) before the restore. Restore files to original backup location then restart service. Fails if any of the files are open after the service is stopped. REPLACE_AT_REBOOT: Restore files to a temporary location. Use MoveFileEx to replace the files at reboot. REPLACE_AT_REBOOT_IF_CANNOT_REPLACE: Similiar to REPLACE_AT_REBOOT however files may be restored in place in they are not busy. All files within a component must be either completely replaced in place or completely replaced at reboot, so if one component file is busy, all files in that component must be replaced at reboot. RESTORE_TO_ALTERNATIVE_LOCATION: Restore files to an alternate location. Typically writerRestore will indicate that the writer will participate in the restore process CUSTOM: Custom restore method. Requestor's should not handle this case at all for this writer. RESTORE_STOP_START_SERVICE: restore files to original backup location, then restart the specified service. Must be specified if method="STOP_RESTART_SERVICE"; indicates service prior to the restore. Must be specified if method="RESTORE_START_STOP_SERVICE"; indicates service to be restarted after the restore is complete. Whether writer should be invoked after files are restored to disk. Options are always, never, and ifReplaceFails. The latter means that the files will be restored to their original location. If one or more of the files cannot be replaced, then the files will be restored to an alternate location (must be specified via ALTERNATE_LOCATION_MAPPING. After the files are restored, the writer is invoked. Should a reboot be performed after restoring the data for this writer A dependency from one component to another component in another writer. Id of writer that this component is dependent on. Location of a file in a component. For database components, the alternatePath attribute is ignored. Whether this file needs backing up during a full backup. Whether this file needs backing up during a differential backup. Whether this file needs backing up during an incremental backup. Whether this file needs backing up during a log backup. Whether this file needs to be copied off of a snapshot during a full backup. Whether this file needs to be copied off of a snapshot during a differential backup. Whether this file needs to be copied off of a snapshot during an incremental backup. Whether this file needs to be copied off of a snapshot during a log backup. Whether this file is created during backup. If the file is not being copied off of the snapshot volume, it is replaced by this file in PostSnapshot. This ensures that the requestor does not back up the file off of the snapshot Location of a file that the writer should mark as excluded from backup. Location of a file that the writer should mark as excluded from a snapshot. Differenced files that the writer will add during PostSnapshot The time that indicates the point of the last backup. The time that indicates the point of the last backup. The time that indicates the point of the last backup. The time that indicates the point of the last backup. The time that indicates the point of the last backup. The time that indicates the point of the last backup. Partial file specification that the writer will add during PostSnapshot This range list has the form (offset:length ...) where offset is the byte offset in the file to be backed up and length is the length of the data to be backed up. Both are 32 bit integers (for this version of the writer). The ranges must be monotonically increasing and must not overlap. If the rangelist is not specified then the entire file should be backed up. Description of a Writer component. Currently this can describe either a file-group component or a database component. specified the type of a Writer component Is this component selectable for backup or is it always backed up. If no, then the component is always backed up if any other components of the application/service are backed up. If yes, then the component may be selectively backed up. Is this component selectable for restore Allows the writer to override the restore method for this component in the PreRestore event. VSS_RT_ORIGINAL_LOCATION: all files in this component should be restored to their original locations. VSS_RT_ALTERNATE: all files in this component should be restored to the previously specified alternate location When auto recovery is required This is the error code the writer should set for the failed component. The value should be a hexadecimal number without a 0x prefix. If the errorCode attribute is not present, its value will be selected pseudorandomly. File caption Specifies an event that the Test Writer will fail. This is the error code the writer should set for the failed component. The value should be a hexadecimal number without a 0x prefix. If the errorCode attribute is not present, its value will be selected pseudorandomly. Defines the list of events that a Writer can fail. Whether the failure should be retryable or not Whether the failure should be partial or not If the failure is retryable, then this parameter indicates the number of times the writer should fail the event. For parallel events, failEveryNth indicates to fail every nth operation that is hit until numFailures runs out. That is, if failEveryNth is 1, all occurences of this event will fail until numFailures is hit. If it is 2, every 2nd occurence of this event will fail. Specifies an event that the Test Writer will cause to delay for a specified period. Defines the list of events that the Test Writer can cause to delay. This parameter indicates the number of times the writer should delay the event. Use this element to specify signalling on entrance of writer methods using CreateEvent() and SetEvent() Win32 API. At the beginning of the given writer method, the event specified by NotifyOnStartEventName will be opened using CreateEvent() and signalled using SetEvent(). If the event does not already exist, it will be created as a manual event. In this case, one must manually call ResetEvent() to set the state back to unsignalled. Defines the list of writer methods. Use this attribute to specify the writer method which should notify on start. This parameter indicates the name of the event that will be signalled at the start of the given writer method. This is passed to CreateEvent(). Use this element to wait on an event before returning from writer methods using CreateEvent() and WaitForSingleObject() Win32 API. At the end of the given writer method, the event specified by WaitForEventName will be opened with CreateEvent() and waited on using WaitForSingleObject() with an infinite timeout. If the event does not already exist, it will be created as an automatic event with an unsignalled state. Use SetEvent() to signal the event, thereby allowing the writer method to exit. Defines the list of writer methods. Use this attribute to specify the writer method which should wait on an event before returning. This parameter indicates the name of the event that will be waited on before allowing the writer method to exit. This is passed to CreateEvent(). Mapping from a location that was backed up to a location to restore to. Extended error information used by the writer when an event is failed. When this element is present in the FailEvent element, the specified errorCode and errorMessage values will be set by the writer using the SetWriterFailureEx method. This is the extended error code the writer should set for the failed event. The value should be a hexadecimal number without a 0x prefix. If the errorCode attribute is not present, its value will be selected pseudorandomly. This is the extended error message the writer should set for the failed event. If the errorMessage attribute is not present, its value will be set to NULL.