Vista - VSS Writer issue (2005 R2)

I didn't notice it until now, but for the last two weeks I've been getting
event id 1025 errors in "Vss Writer" in the VS EV log. "The VSS writer for
Virtual Server failed during the Identify phase, and would not show up in
the list of writers on the machine." And that's true: vssadmin list writers
doesn't mention it.

VS was continuing to work though, as usual, until rebooting the server
tonight (Server 2003), at which point I received an error in the System log:
7000 in "Service Control Manager": "The Virtual Server service failed to
start due to the following error: Access is denied." Which is probably a
result of the writer being missing. The service will no longer start.

How do I get the writer back? All I could find was this (see the end):
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...d-8ef963fcde44

I followed the procedure, but the "regsvr32 vswriter.dll" command would not
complete. And when DLLs won't register, they won't register. Even if it did,
I'm not sure it would have worked.

I have no idea what occurred two weeks ago to prompt all this.

The fix was to give Network Service permissions on the VS directory, as
Network Service was the user attempting to run the VS service, and it was
being "denied" that privilege. That sort of makes sense until you wonder how
it is that it's worked until now: the service to my knowledge has always
been run by Network Service, and the directory permissions have never
changed. Quite odd.

"Milhouse Van Houten" <btvs@newsgroup> wrote in message
news:u#m5O5RXKHA.4068@newsgroup