Issues that may occur when you use the volume shadow copy service (VSS) reference writer in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

When you use the volume shadow copy service (VSS) reference writer (Spwriter.exe) in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, one or more of the following issues may occur:

• When the OnPostRestore event occurs in the VSS reference writer, the event tries to clear a variant that holds a safe array, even though the array was previously freed. This may cause the VSS reference writer to stop responding when you try to restore it.
• The VSS reference writer reports a dependency to the search writer as MACHINENAME\logical path. However, if the search is local, the VSS reference writer should not use MACHINENAME in the path.
• When the VSS reference writer uses a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to identify the instance of the MSSQLSERVER, the VSS reference writer constructs an incorrect logical path of the computer that is running Microsoft SQL Server. The incorrect logical path does not include the correct MACHINENAME reference as part of the path.
• The VSS reference writer reports a dependency to Microsoft SQL Server databases. This occurs even if the Microsoft SQL Server instance that is hosting those databases is offline.
• When a restore process occurs on a computer that is also running search components, the VSS reference writer may cause the process to stop responding.

How to obtain the hotfix

This issue is fixed in the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Hotfix Package that is dated April 12, 2007. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.