Sorry, Posted twice.

I was able to get it integrated. I modified the original script VM-Backup.vbs, not yours. Your script was very helpful as a reference though. I needed some of the features from the original script and it was easier to add vshadow to that script the to add the needed functionality to you script.

This script includes all the orginal functionality, and adds VShadow for minimal downtime. VShadow will mount as a drive letter. And then un-mount when the script is finished.

I did not add Zack's original VShadow code to copy without mounting a drive (Honestly, didnt see a point in having it both ways)

You will need vshadow.exe in the same directory as the script.
7-Zip must be "installed", regkeys are used to get the 7-zip path.
You CAN use the VM-Backup.ini file to pass most of the parameters you can set in the script

To use VShadow:
DefaultVMPath = "E:\Virtual Machines\" 'Relative to VMware host. Need read permissions
DefaultCopyPath = "D:\VMBackupTemp\" 'Relative to the machine running the script, UNC is OK. Need write permissions. Not used for VShadow
DefaultBackupPath = "G:\VMBackup\" 'Relative to the machine running the script, UNC is OK. Need write permissions
UseVShadow = True 'Set True to use VShadow
VShadowCopyPath = "O:\Virtual Machines\" 'This should be identical to "DefaultCopyPath" but with a different drive letter. This is the drive letter where VShadow will be mounted (O: in this case)

Try creating a shadow copy and running the Zip command by itself from the prompt.

1. vshadow.exe -nw -p -script=GeneratedVarsTempScript.cmd SOURCEDRIVE
2. call GeneratedVarsTempScript.cmd
3. vshadow.exe -el=%SHADOW_ID_1%,O:
4. "C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" a -tzip "F:\VMBackup\PRTG-2008-01-29_113653.zip" "O:\vmbackuptemp\PRTG\*"

Sounds like it may be trying to zip up the running VM, which shouldnt be the case, since its a shadow copy.

Ok, so the ZIP file is getting created in the correct place now. And, this should happen after the VM is started and running. Correct? If so, then the script is working as it should. I didnt see a point in copying the file and then zipping it when it didnt affect downtime. So I set it up to zip up the files directly from the Shadow Drive.

VM shouldnt be down more than 1 min or so, correct? The zipping process itself does take a while, even longer if accross the network.

My goal was to minimize downtime of the VM.

The VShadowCopyPath should be the same as your original VM path. So if you VMs are located in E:\storage\VMs the VShadowCopyPath would be O:\storage\VMs.

It sound like you already have the VShadow part working but getting a zip error. May just be a path error.

Further to the above...The e-mail alert informs:

The zip command, , failed with code 1. The VMware Backup Script couldn't create E:\VMBackup\Backup test-2008-01-30_014239.zip. Please check if you have enough disk space on E:\VMBackup and run the backup script again.

There is 254GB free space and the VM is only 3.5GB.

Turning off Zip file creation (by making MakeZippedFile = False) also fails, so it's not a zip file creation issue.

The backup says it completes successfully, but a backup is not actually produced. The resulting e-mail alert is below:

• THERE IS NOT ENOUGH FREE DISK SPACE TO BACKUP AGAIN! ***

The VMware Backup Script backed up the virtual machine 'Backup test' successfully.

Backup saved as .
VM was offline 2 minutes between 08:00:59 and 08:02:36.
The script operation was paused for 0 minutes.
The compress operation took 0 minutes.

The VM is approximately GB.
The zip file is approximately GB.
There is approximately GB free on the backup location.

Total run time was 2 minutes.
Start Time: 2008-01-30_08:00:59.
End Time: 2008-01-30_08:02:36.

I'm seeing a similar issue with the statistics. Everything works ok for me with the backup and zip creation, however the VM size and disk space statistics are not getting valid information for some reason:

{size:2}

• THERE IS NOT ENOUGH FREE DISK SPACE TO BACKUP AGAIN! ***

The VMware Backup Script backed up the virtual machine 'OSIRIS' successfully.

Backup saved as W:\IT\virtual-machines\Backups\VMware\OSIRIS-2008-01-30_135646.zip.
VM was offline 3 minutes between 13:56:48 and 13:59:59.
The script operation was paused for 0 minutes.
The compress operation took 75 minutes.

The VM is approximately GB.
The zip file is approximately 5.64 GB.
There is approximately GB free on the backup location.

Total run time was 78 minutes.
Start Time: 2008-01-30_13:56:48.
End Time: 2008-01-30_15:14:01.

• THERE IS NOT ENOUGH FREE DISK SPACE TO BACKUP AGAIN! ***

{size}

Thanks for the updated script Gigaguy.

I now have this working - hope the below helps a 64bit OS user somewhere. I was running this script with the below batch file to run the script in a 32bit cmd.exe:

@echo off
echo "Backing up W2k3 sample"
c:
cd\
cd WINDOWS\SysWOW64
cmd /C wscript.exe c:\vmbackup\VM-Backup.vbs sample

This batch file works on a 64bit 2003 server OS with saxa's script (http://communities.vmware.com/thread/54782) but not on this one. You get the following error below:

2008-02-01_17:46:02 Running "C:\Program Files (x86)\7-Zip\7z.exe" a -tzip "E:\VMBackup\Backup test-2008-02-01_174426.zip" "O:\Virtual Machines\Backup test\*"
2008-02-01_17:46:02 The zip command returned result code 1
2008-02-01_17:46:02 **ERROR**: The zip command failed, no zip file was created

This error also occurs if you do not have vshadow.exe in the same folder as the script.

To make this work I have to manually run the 32bit cmd.exe from the WINDOWS\SysWOW64 folder, navigate to the scipt folder and run the script from here e.g.VM-Backup.vbs sample.

Any other 64bit Windows OS users care to share how they run their script from a batch file? (I would like to add this as a scheduled task) - (EDIT) SOLUTION IS TO PUT VSHADOW.EXE IN WINDOWS\SysWOW64 folder

Message was edited by: Ben Rayner