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Restore Hyper-V Virtual Machines (RCT) with Windows Server Backup



Windows Server Backup (WSB) is a built-in feature in Windows Server that can be easily enabled through Server Manager. This tool provides an intuitive interface to perform backups and restores of entire volumes, specific volumes, system state, or individual files and folders within a machine. Additionally, WSB offers great flexibility in restoration, allowing the administrator to restore volumes, applications, system state, or files from backups stored either locally or remotely.

In all recent versions of Windows, Windows Server Backup includes very powerful features, such as an advanced storage management system (which allows the automatic deletion of older backups to optimize disk usage), support for volumes larger than 2 TB with 4K sector sizes, backup of shared volumes in clusters, and improved reporting systems. However, the most significant improvement is that Windows Server Backup fully supports backup and restoration of Hyper-V.

The Windows Server Backup features for Hyper-V infrastructure backup include:

  1. Full Hyper-V host backup with all VMs included
  2. Hyper-V host backup without including VMs
  3. Backup of individual VMs at the host level
  4. Backup from inside the guest operating system of the VM

Thanks to these features, administrators can schedule effective backup strategies for Hyper-V using Windows Server Backup. The best practice is to schedule automatic full backups of the Hyper-V host, including all virtual machines, in order to preserve configurations, snapshots, and virtual disks. This method ensures greater flexibility in restoration, which is especially useful for disaster recovery. To restore VMs, the administrator can select “Hyper-V” in the “Select Restore Type” section of the wizard in the Windows Server Backup console.

restore-wizard

There are three main restore scenarios for virtual machines, which can be adopted depending on the recovery environment:

  • Restore to the original location: ideal when the original host is still operational. VMs are restored in the same environment without the need to recreate them or reinstall Hyper-V.
  • Restore to a different location: useful when the original host is no longer available. The administrator can restore and register VMs on other available Hyper-V hosts.
  • Copy to a folder: useful in the absence of a Hyper-V host. The virtual machine’s virtual hard disks are restored as files, allowing the virtual machines to be recreated after reinstalling Hyper-V.

Some aspects to consider when restoring VMs from a host backup:

  • If the restore is done while the VM is running, it will be stopped and deleted before being restored.
  • When restoring a VM from a hot backup, the guest operating system may report an improper shutdown.

Overall, WSB provides the essential backup features needed. However, for advanced needs, more powerful backup solutions that fully support Hyper-V can be chosen, such as Iperius Backup, which allows for hot and incremental Hyper-V backups using RCT technology (the most advanced mode available today, Resilient Change Tracking) and selecting a variety of backup destinations (NAS, Tape LTO, FTP servers, or Cloud Services such as Amazon S3, Azure Storage, OneDrive, or Google Drive).

Among the advanced features of Iperius Backup are automatic backup scheduling and email notifications to inform the administrator about the status of operations. The software supports all versions of Hyper-V available on Windows Server 2012, Server 2008, Server 2016, Server 2019, Server 2022, Server 2025, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11.



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