SUMMARY
Upon attempting to perform an agent based backup of a server that had been previously moved from Hyper-V to VMware, the following error is encountered.
(VSS_E_UNEXPECTED_PROVIDER_ERROR) The shadow copy provider had an unexpected error while trying to process the specified operation.
ISSUE
In many cases, VMs that are moved from Hyper-V still have the Hyper-V IC VSS provider loaded which no longer functions when running on VMware.
You can confirm this by running the command "vssadmin list providers" and observing the following in the output:
Provider name: 'Hyper-V IC Software Shadow Copy Provider'
Provider type: Software
Provider Id: {74600e39-7dc5-4567-a03b-f091d6c7b092}
Version: 1.0.0.0
RESOLUTION
Remove the incompatible provider registry key that no longer functions and restart the Volume Shadow Copy service.
Before making any changes to the registry, it is highly recommended that a backup of the registry is performed
1. Open a command prompt as an Administrator.
2. Backup the registry using the following command:
reg export HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Services\VSS\Providers C:\Windows\Temp\VSS_Providers.reg
3. Identify the Provider ID that needs to be removed from the output of the "vssadmin list providers".
In the following example, the Provider ID we need is {74600e39-7dc5-4567-a03b-f091d6c7b092} which may be different on your system.
C:\Windows\system32>vssadmin list providers
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2013 Microsoft Corp.
Provider name: 'Hyper-V IC Software Shadow Copy Provider'
Provider type: Software
Provider Id: {74600e39-7dc5-4567-a03b-f091d6c7b092}
Version: 1.0.0.0
Provider name: 'Microsoft File Share Shadow Copy provider'
Provider type: Fileshare
Provider Id: {89300202-3cec-4981-9171-19f59559e0f2}
Version: 1.0.0.1
Provider name: 'Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0'
Provider type: System
Provider Id: {b5946137-7b9f-4925-af80-51abd60b20d5}
Version: 1.0.0.7
4. Remove the registry key using the following command being sure to substitute the example Provider ID with the one you have identified:
reg delete HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Services\VSS\Providers\{74600e39-7dc5-4567-a03b-f091d6c7b092}
5. Restart the Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) service apply the change using the following command:
net stop vss & net start vss
6. Re-attempt the backup.