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Problems with NTBackup

ziggy on 2003-05-23T15:35:43

CNet reports about a problem with NTBackup and Win2003:

Microsoft is working to solve an incompatibility issue that prevents backups made with Windows Server 2003 from being read on previous versions of Windows.[...]

While the software uses the same Microsoft Tape Format as previous versions, NTBackup.exe writes 64KB blocks to the tape. Previous versions--in Windows XP Pro, Window 2000 and Windows NT4--use 32KB blocks.

Um, didn't anyone test this before release? This is easily one of the oldest issues in computing.

Of course they did test it.

jhi on 2003-05-23T18:23:26

And it worked 100% according to the Prime Directive of Microsoft: The Customer Shall Keep Upgrading To New Versions So That Bill''s Coffers Are Never Empty.

Re:Of course they did test it.

hfb on 2003-05-25T19:55:13

Oh, I don't know if MS is all that self-interested. Back in the day at BBN we had Legato enterprise backup and they sent some guys out on a weekend to do a prom upgrade on all the DLTs and a little tweak on the server side. Everything was great until I got paged at 3am a few days later by a paniced operator because he couldn't read any tapes dating from before the firmware upgrade. The joy involved of not being able to downgrade the firmware on any of the jukeboxes and some really angry support calls involving just about everyone in the food chain netted 2 extra drives with the older firmware and purging the tape libraries which forced the ops to scan each and every tape they needed to restore from. MS isn't original, they're just repeating history :)