File specification. Can include wildcard characters ? and * Path to a file. The path can include environment variables or values extracted from registry keys. Is path specified recursive or limited to the directory that is specified. Alternate path in which to find the file. Files in a file group may have been copied to an alternative location by the writer. Backup should pick up the files from the alternative location instead of the original location but should restore the files to their original location Logical path for a Writer component. This logical name uses backslash as separators to form a logical namespace hierarchy Name used to identify a Writer component. May be qualified by a logical path. Configuration information for the VSS Test Writer. How the data associated with the writer is used. Whether verbose output is enabled. low: Messages are not printed if files are not properly restored medium: Most general messages are printed, including warnings if files are not restored high: Extremely verbose output is enabled. Whether to check that excluded files are not restored at restore time. If restoring to a location that may contain files matching the exclude list, set this to false to prevent spurious warnings. Whether to check that included files are restored at restore time. How restore should be performed. Includes specification of how files should be restored as well as special steps that should occur in order to complete the restore. RESTORE_IF_NONE_THERE: i.e., can restore data if it is not at the location where it was backed up from. This essentially allows data to be restored to a clean system RESTORE_IF_CAN_BE_REPLACED: Restore data if all of the files can be replaced in the orgiginal backup location. Fails if any of the files are open. If an alternate location is provided, files will be placed there if they cannot be restored to their original location. STOP_RESTART_SERVICE: stop service (service attribute must be specified). Restore files to original backup location. Restart service. Fails if any of the files are open after the service is stopped. REPLACE_AT_REBOOT: Restore files to a temporary location. Use MoveFileEx to replace the files at reboot. REPLACE_AT_REBOOT_IF_CANNOT_REPLACE: Similiar to REPLACE_AT_REBOOT however files may be restored in place in they are not busy. All files within a component must be either completely replaced in place or completely replaced at reboot, so if one component file is busy, all files in that component must be replaced at reboot. RESTORE_TO_ALTERNATIVE_LOCATION: Restore files to an alternate location. Typically writerRestore will indicate that the writer will participate in the restore process CUSTOM: Custom restore method. Requestor's should not handle this case at all for this writer. Must be specified if method="STOP_RESTART_SERVICE", indicates service to be stopped before restoring files. Whether writer should be invoked after files are restored to disk. Options are always, never, and ifReplaceFails. The latter means that the files will be restored to their original location. If one or more of the files cannot be replaced, then the files will be restored to an alternate location (must be specified via ALTERNATE_LOCATION_MAPPING. After the files are restored, the writer is invoked. Should a reboot be performed after restoring the data for this writer A dependency from one component to another component in another writer. Id of writer that this component is dependent on. Location of a file in a component. For database components, the alternatePath attribute is ignored. Location of a file that the writer should mark as excluded from backup. Description of a Writer component. Currently this can describe either a file-group component or a database component. specified the type of a Writer component Is this component selectable for backup or is it always backed up. If no, then the component is always backed up if any other components of the application/service are backed up. If yes, then the component may be selectively backed up. Is this component selectable for restore Allows the writer to override the restore method for this component in the PreRestore event. VSS_RT_ORIGINAL: all files in this component should be restored to their original locations. VSS_RT_ALTERNATE: all files in this component should be restored to the previously specified alternate location Specifies an event that the Test Writer will fail. Defines the list of events that a Writer can fail. Whether the failure should be retryable or not If the failure is retryable, then this parameter indicates the number of times the writer should fail the event. Mapping from a location that was backed up to a location to restore to. A new target path for a file that the Writer specifies at restore time.