Step 7. Finalize Restore

After you close the wizard, Veeam Backup & Replication opens the Veeam Backup browser with the file system tree of the restored VM. Note that names of the restored VM hard disks may differ from the original ones.

You can perform the following operations in the Veeam Backup browser:

• Restore files and folders to the original location
• Save files and folders to a folder on the backup server or network shared folder
• Launch application item restore
• Open files in Microsoft Windows File Explorer

After you finish restoring files, close the Veeam Backup browser.

Restoring Files to Original Location

To restore a file or folder to its original location, in the Veeam Backup browser, right-click the file or folder and select one of the following commands:

• To overwrite the original file on the VM guest OS with the file restored from the backup, select Restore > Overwrite.
• To save the file restored from the backup next to the original file, select Restore > Keep.

Veeam Backup & Replication will add the RESTORED- prefix to the original file name and store the restored file in the same folder where the original file resides. If the file with the RESTORED- prefix already exists in the original location, Veeam Backup & Replication will name the restored file in the following format: RESTORED-<filename>__YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.

Saving Files to a New Location

To save restored files or folders on the machine where Veeam Backup & Replication console is installed or in a network shared folder:

1. Right-click the necessary file or folder in the file system tree or in the details pane on the right and select Copy To.
2. In the Choose Folder window, select the necessary destination:

• To recover files to a folder on the server where the Veeam Backup & Replication console is installed, click Browse to find the necessary folder.
• To recover files to a shared folder, enter a path to the destination folder in the Choose folder field.

3. In the Choose Folder window, choose whether to preserve original NTFS permissions or not:

• Select the Preserve permissions and ownership check box to keep the original ownership and security permissions for restored objects. Veeam Backup & Replication will copy selected files and folders along with associated Access Control Lists, preserving granular access settings.
• Leave the Preserve permissions and ownership check box not selected if you do not want to preserve the original ownership and access settings for restored objects. Veeam Backup & Replication will change security settings: the user who launched the Veeam Backup & Replication console will be set as the owner of the restored object, while access permissions will be inherited from the folder to which the restored object is copied.

3. If prompted, in the Credentials window, specify settings of the user account to access the destination location.

Launching Application Item Restore

If you are restoring guest OS files from VMs where the supported applications (Microsoft Active Directory, Oracle and so on) are installed, you can also launch application item restore directly from the Veeam Backup browser. To restore application items, Veeam Backup & Replication uses special tools called Veeam Explorers.

To launch application item restore, do the following:

1. On the Home tab, click Application Items.
2. Select the required application:

• Microsoft Active Directory
• Microsoft Exchange
• Microsoft Share Point
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Oracle

3. In the opened Veeam Explorer, perform the necessary operations. For more information on Veeam Explorers, see the Veeam Explorers User Guide.

Working with Microsoft Windows File Explorer

You can use Microsoft Windows File Explorer to work with restored files and folders:

1. On the ribbon of the Veeam Backup browser, click Mount to Console to mount the VM disks to the Veeam Backup & Replication console.

The VM disks are mounted to the C:\VeeamFLR\<vmname>\<volume n> folder.

2. To open Microsoft Windows File Explorer, do the following:

• Click Open in Explorer on the Veeam Backup browser ribbon or right-click the necessary folder and select Explorer.
• Click File Explorer in the Start menu of the machine where Veeam Backup & Replication console is installed. Browse to the folder where the VM disks are mounted and find the necessary files.

It is recommended that you use Microsoft Windows File Explorer only to view file content, not to restore files. For guest OS file restore, use Veeam Backup browser. This browser has the following advantages:

1. You can browse the VM guest OS file system ignoring the file system ACL settings.
2. You can preserve permissions and ownership during file-level restore.

If you open the VM file system in the Microsoft Windows Explorer, these capabilities are not available. For more information, see Microsoft Docs.

Closing Veeam Backup Browser

You can browse to VM guest OS files only while the Veeam Backup browser is open. After the Veeam Backup browser is closed, Veeam Backup & Replication unmounts VM disks from the machine where the Veeam Backup & Replication console is installed and mount server (if you have restored VM guest OS files to the original location).

It is recommended that you close the Veeam Backup browser after you have finished restoring VM guest OS files. When the Veeam Backup browser is open, the backup file whose VM guest OS file system is displayed in the browser is locked in the backup repository. As a result, some scheduled operations that use this backup file may fail.

Veeam Backup & Replication checks if there is any activity in the Veeam Backup browser with an interval of 5 minutes. If the user or Veeam Backup & Replication components and services do not perform any actions for 30 minutes, Veeam Backup & Replication displays a warning that the Veeam Backup browser is to be closed in 5 minutes.

After the warning is displayed, you can perform one of the following actions:

• You can close the Veeam Backup browser manually.
• You can click Cancel to postpone the close operation. In this case, the Veeam Backup browser will remain open for 5 minutes. After this period expires, Veeam Backup & Replication will display the warning again.
• You can perform no action at all. In this case, the Veeam Backup browser will be automatically closed in 5 minutes.