The backup has detected that both the VMWare VSS Provider and the Veritas VSS Provider have been installed on the virtual machine

Problem

Back up of a VMWare virtual machine with the Backup Exec Agent for Window Servers (AWS) installed creates an exception in the job log.

Error Message

V-79-8192-38331 -The backup has detected that both the VMware VSS Provider and the Backup Exec VSS Provider have been installed on the virtual machine <vmFQDN>. However, only one VSS Provider can be used on a virtual machine. You must disable the Backup Exec VSS Provider.

-or-

V-79-57344-38260 - 0xe0009574 - Unable to create a snapshot of the virtual machine. The virtual machine may be too busy to quiesce to take the snapshot.
 

Cause

During the AWS (Agent for Windows) installation to a virtual machine, when the VMWare Tools service is detected,  the BE VSS provider is installed.
 
For Backup Exec 24.x or earlier version, if the tools are reinstalled after the Remote Agent is in place, or if the installation of AWS did not completely remove the VMWare Tools VSS provider, the two providers will deadlock, and the job will finish with the warning/exception messages provided in this article.
For Backup Exec 25.0 or later version, if the tools are reinstalled after AWS is in place, or if the installation of AWS did not disable the Backup Exec VSS provider, the two providers will deadlock, and the job will finish with the warning/exception messages provided in this article.

Solution

Note: Note: The following solution should not be needed for the combination of Backup Exec 25.0 (or later) and VMware Tools 10.1 (or later) - see specific information regarding this combination below.  If running a version prior to Backup Exec 25.0, Backup Exec should be upgraded to Backup Exec 25.0 or later. The VMware VSS provider will be used in Backup Exec 25.0 or later versions.
 

Warning: the specifics of these steps are based on the Virtual Machine (VM) running the Backup Exec 16 original release of AWS on Windows 2012 R2, running VMware Tools 9.10.5. Different versions of any of these components may result in minor differences to the details of the steps involved.

1.    Inside the VM, start Control Panel --> Programs --> Programs and Features
2.    Locate and right-click on VMware Tools (in the list of programs) and select Change
3.    Click Next
4.    Ensure that the Modify radio button is selected and click Next
5.    Using the drop down against Volume Shadow Service Support to select the Entire feature will be unavailable (this should result in a red cross against this option)
6.    Click Next, Change and then Finish
7.    At this point, no reboot of the VM  should be needed. CAUTION: This may depend on the Operating System and Vmware Tools versions as well as any recent application installs that may have changed the overall state of the VSS and / or the Microsoft Installer (MSI)  subsystems on the server concerned.
8.    Use the Operating System Services applet to  confirm that the VMware Snapshot Provider is no longer listed as a service. If it is still present, affected customers should consider contacting VMware for advice on how to manually remove the VMware Snapshot Provider.
9.    Run the backup job was returning the warning/exception message.
10.    If the backup job finishes without reporting the condition, no further steps are required. If, however, the warning/exception messages are still reported, then continue with the next steps.
11.    Use REGEDIT within the VM to confirm if HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\BeVssProviderConflict exists
12.    If this reg key does exist, start Notepad as Administrator
13.    Within notepad open C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\manifest.txt (Note: this location is marked as hidden by default)
14.    Locate two entries called vcbprovider_2003.installed and vcbprovider.installed
15.    Make sure both entries are set to "FALSE"
16.    Run the backup job that was returning the warning/exception message - this issue should now be resolved.
Information for Backup Exec 16 FP1 and VMware Tools 10.1 (or later)
The installation of AWS, as provided with Backup Exec 16 Feature Pack 1, into a VM running VMware Tools 10.1 no longer removes the VMware VSS Provider, instead the file called
C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\tools.conf
is edited (or created) so that it includes the following section:
       [vmbackup]
       enableVSS = false
 
I

Information for Backup Exec 25.0 or later and VMware Tools 10.1 (or later)
When we configure AWS 25.0 on a virtual machine with VMware tools version is 10.1.x or later, we don’t require a Backup Exec VSS provider, follow below mentioned steps to disable the Backup Exec VSS provider.

 C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\tools.conf is edited (or created) so that it includes the following section:
   [vmbackup]
   enableVSS = true

 Rename the directory to C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\backupscripts.d to backupscripts.d.unused
 Remove HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\BeVssProviderConflict registry key from guest VM registry hive.

Due to this change in operation, if the warning/exception message is seen with this combination of Backup Exec and Vmware Tools versions then the content of tools.conf should be reviewed (and edited as administrator if necessary) instead of following the above steps
 

Acknowledgement:
This solution has been updated in April 2017 and July of 2025. 

Thanks to the information and assistance provided by the Veritas Vox Community contributor 'frossmark'