Requirements and Limitations

Before you restore VM guest OS files, consider the following requirements and limitations.

Requirements

Consider the following general requirements:

• You can restore files from the file systems listed in section Platform Support.

• You can restore files from basic disks and dynamic disks (including simple, mirrored and striped volumes).

• The account that you use to start the Veeam Backup & Replication console and to connect to the backup server must have permissions and privileges described in section Veeam Backup & Replication Console Permissions.
• You can restore VM guest OS files from a backup that has at least one successfully created restore point.
• [For restore to original location] VM guest OS must be accessible from the backup server over the network, or over PowerShell Direct (for VMs that reside on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2016 or later).
• [For restore to original location] Hyper-V Integration Services must be installed on the target VM. Application-aware processing must be supported for the Microsoft Windows OS of the original machine. If this is not possible, you can use 1-click file-level restore or copy files to the selected folder and then move them to their original location.
• [For comparison functionality and restore of permissions only] Check that VMware Tools are installed on the original machine and the machine is accessible over the network.
• [For restore changes functionality] This functionality is included in the Veeam Universal License. When using a legacy socket-based license, the Enterprise or Enterprise Plus editions of Veeam Backup & Replication are required.
• You cannot use the comparison functionality if the Group Managed Service Account (gMSA) account is used for the VM whose files you plan to restore.
• [For restore to another VM, to original location, or permissions only] If the target VM uses the gMSA account and you restore files from a backup, you must also install this account on the mount server associated with the backup repository on which the backup resides. If you restore from a replica, you must install the gMSA account on the backup server.

Requirements for ReFS

If you plan to restore files from a VM running Microsoft Windows ReFS, consider the following requirements for the Veeam Backup & Replication components involved in the restore process:

• The machine on which a mount point is created (for example, the mount server) must run Microsoft Windows Server 2012 or later.
• The machine on which a mount point is created must support the same ReFS version or later than the version used on the VM from which you plan to restore files. For more information on which OSes support which ReFS, see ReFS versions and compatibility matrix.

To learn in which scenarios on which machines mount points are created, see Mount Points and Restore Scenarios.

Requirements for Data Deduplication

If you plan to restore files from a VM running Microsoft Windows Server 2012 or later and data deduplication is enabled for some VM volumes, consider the following for the Veeam Backup & Replication components involved in the restore process:

• The machine on which a mount point is created (for example, the mount server) must run Microsoft Windows Server 2012 or later.
• The machine on which a mount point is created must run Microsoft Windows Server of the same version or later than the guest OS of a VM from which you plan to restore files.
• Data deduplication must be enabled on the machine on which a mount point is created.

To learn in which scenarios on which machines mount points can be created, see Mount Points and Restore Scenarios.

Limitations

Consider the following limitations:

• You cannot restore pipes and other file system objects. Guest OS file restore supports recovery of files and folders only.

• Processing of reparse points is supported only for NTFS. Note that reparse points with reparse tag values other than IO_REPARSE_TAG_MOUNT_POINT, IO_REPARSE_TAG_SYMLINK and IO_REPARSE_TAG_DEDUP may be processed and restored incorrectly.
• You cannot restore files from a backup created in the reverse incremental mode if the backup job is being performed. If the backup is created in the incremental backup mode and the backup job is being performed, you can restore files from any available restore point.
• The comparison functionality is not available for backups created by Veeam Backup for RHV, for backups exported with K10 policies and for backups stored in external repositories (for example, backups created by Veeam Backup for AWS, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure and so on).
• The comparison functionality uses Veeam Deployer Service. This service is a 32-bit service. During the comparison, the service converts some 64-bit objects in 32-bit objects. That is why such objects are shown as deleted in the Veeam Backup browser, for example, some objects in the Windows folder.
• You cannot restore VM guest OS files to the original location if you have excluded the system disk from the VM backup used for restore and the volume GUID of the system disk was changed after the VM backup creation.
• [For restore to another VM] You can restore items only to Microsoft Windows-based VMs. You can select a VM only within the same virtual infrastructure where the original VM resides. For example, if the original VM resides in VMware vSphere, you can select a VM that resides in VMware vSphere only.
• [For permission restore] Veeam Backup & Replication restores only permissions. Attributes such as Read-only, Encrypted and so on are not restored.

• [For permission restore] Permissions can be restored only for files and folders that are still present on the original VMs. If files and folders are missing, restore fails.

• You cannot restore guest OS files encrypted with Windows EFS.
• You cannot restore and browse guest OS files on disks encrypted by BitLocker.

• Also, see limitations in the VM section.