From the experiences I’ve had with this error there have been a few constants. All machines are running Windows 7 Pro 64bit with Office 2013 or later installed. Also a factor is the use of Konica Minolta Bizhub printers as the default device but after research this is less of a contributing factor.

Troubleshooting

Normally when getting a call about this, it’s down to there being unsaved work in peril from being lost as a result of the Not Responding message. Luckily with this issue the program can be resurrected in order to save work.

Open up task manager and look in Processes for WOWspl64, right click and choose End Task. Now the office application will spring back into life, to allow saving of the file and a happier user.

Restarting the Print Spooler service will reload the program and the issue will go away, only to return later.

The Issue

The actual problem related to print drivers, WOWspl64 is the middle man that gets caught up in the crossfire. The real issue is seemingly down to the use of PCL 6 printer drivers that do not sit well with the Windows & Office combination. Finding this issue is compounded in the case if the Bizhub printers by the drivers labelling as being just PCL.

Solution

Microsoft has identified and issued a fix for this, however this did not work for me. A more permanent solution is to downgrade to PCL 5 drivers, this so far has resolved this issue and retained the functionality for the user.

For Konica Minolta printers, the driver download pages have options to choose PCL 5 and the installer is easy to run and configure, with a new printer appearing in the Devices and Printers page. Just remember to delete to PCL6 associated printer to stop this issue repeating in the future.

“There is not enough disk space to create the volume shadow copy on the storage location. Make sure that, for all volumes to be backed up, the minimum required disk space for shadow copy creation is available. This applies to both the backup storage destination and the volumes included in the backup.

Minimum Requirement: For volumes less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabytes of free space. For volumes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space.

Recommended: At least 1 gigabyte of free disk space on each volume if volume size is more than 1 gigabyte.

Detailed error: Insufficient storage available to create either the shadow copy storage file or other shadow copy data.”

This doesn’t really explain the issue, as setting up a schedule with Windows Server Backup in 2012 involves the utility checking available storage before creating the backup task, and a manual check showed there was ample storage on the destination volume, with the source volume having 86% free space.

Delving into the Event Viewer for more detailed error message, I get this:

“The backup operation that started at ‘‎2016‎-‎12‎-‎09T06:00:14.502000000Z’ has failed because the Volume Shadow Copy Service operation to create a shadow copy of the volumes being backed up failed with following error code ‘0x80780119’. Please review the event details for a solution, and then rerun the backup operation once the issue is resolved.”

The internet has a lot of theories and solutions, with the most common workaround being disabling security to perform a backup. This can be incorporated into a batch file and triggered by task scheduler, but its fiddly and leaves the system open while backups take place, lucky I discovered a simpler and more secure solution.

It seems the error is being generated due to Volume Shadow Copy service (VSS) being assigned a drive volume that does not have enough free space, on a default install of Server 2012, that volume is the System Reserved partition.

To complicate matters, the Disk Management utility does not report the amount of free space.

To find out, open a PowerShell window and enter Get-Volumes to see the below:

Here the Recovery partition only has 30MB of free space, below the required amount specified in the original error message.

To fix, go to the drive properties in My PC, and choose the Shadow Copy tab, then in the Select Volume box, choose a volume that has enough free space, in this example the C drive.

Once applied, the backup will complete:

But doing the same with Windows Server 2012 is much more difficult, since Microsoft decided to remove the ability to run a program on a low battery event from its power management settings. To make things worse I discovered that a bug in Server 2008 and later meant that issuing a Shutdown command from the native power settings would not perform a clean shut down, instead killing the power in a few seconds. This is not good news for RAID arrays and data integrity.

Time for a new solution, and since Microsoft are of no use, help would need to come from a 3^rd party. After research and testing answer came from Shutter, a small program that runs as a trigger and event type program for a variety of different scenarios, with battery discharging status being one. Luckily two instances of the program could be run, one to shut down the remote servers and another for the host machine. Importantly the program can also be run as a Windows service, but more on this in the walk through.  here is how it is done:

Download the portable version of Shutter from den4b.com.

In the Windows directory, create a new folder, here it will be named ups.

In that folder create another 2 folders, one will handle the local server shutdown and the other for remote servers.

Copy the contents of the downloaded Shutter zip to both of the folders.

Before opening the program for the first time, create a .bat that will issue commands to shut down servers. Open Notepad and enter the following text:

shutdown /s /f /t 10 /c “Battery Backup Low”

This is for shutting down the host server. To save, select the folder to be used for host shutdown, in the file type menu select All files, and create a file name with it ending in .bat

Do the same for remote server shutdown using this script, and save to the remote folder:

shutdown /s /f /m \\SERVER /t 10 /c “Battery Backup Low”

Replace SERVER with the name or IP address of the other server running on the UPS.

Now go to the local shutdown folder and open Shutter.

In the events box, add battery and choose a trigger percentage and add. In the action box, choose run a program, and locate the .bat file you created for shutting down the host server.

Important: Go to the settings window and copy the following options:

Save settings and the program can now be closed. Repeat these steps to shut down the remote server, it’s essential to set the battery percentage trigger higher for remote server as they will not get the signal if the host server has already shut down, I recommend at least 5% higher as a safety net especially if the UPS battery drains quickly.

As a power outage is an unpredictable event, Shutter needs to be running at all times on the host server, therefore it needs to be ran as a system service. Microsoft did release a tool that could allow any program to run as a service, however it is very basic and will not restart a program if it happened to crash. Lucky a superior utility by the name of NSSM is available that takes this into account, it also has a more user friendly interface to set up services.

Download the latest release of NSSM and place in the main folder created previously, as it needs to be run alongside the Shutter instances.

From a Command Prompt, navigate to the folder holding the program, by using cd, then a space and the full path to the folder, e.g: cd C:\Windows\ups

Type nssm install and enter, and the new service setup screen will appear.

Choose the Shutter program to run, and create a name to the process, additional details can be made in the Description tab.

Move to the login tab and select Log on as, then use an account capable of administrator access and password details.

Click create service and its installed, repeat the process for the other shutter program, giving it a different service name.

By default, these newly created services will start when Windows starts, but need to be started manually when first installed. To start them, the simple option is to restart the machine, but much better would be to press the Windows key & R, then type services.msc and click Run. Scroll down the list to the created services, right click on each and choose start.

Testing

It’s worth testing to see if it works rather than just hoping it does. And to save the wait for the batteries to discharge its worth raising the trigger values on Shutter to shut down the machines earlier, this also gives the benefit more charge left if the shutdown does not work.

Before opening Shutter to change values, the services need to be stopped. Open services.msc like before and chose stop against the service.

Make the changes in the action box, its recommended to choose somewhere between 70 and 90 percent. Close the programs and start the services back up. Then testing is as simple as unplugging the UPS from the wall, for security the host machine can be left logged on to monitor the remaining battery percentage so you know when the trigger points are happening.

Unfortunately, the UPS in use only has one monitoring port which is connected to my original server, meaning during a spell of prolonged power outage, the new server will not know when to shut down safely and will continue to run until the UPS runs out of battery supply, leaving it vulnerable to data corruption that affected the original server prior to battery backup.

But with a simple script and some setup both servers can shut down safely before the batteries run out.

The Idea is to have a script sent from the host server with instructions to shut down the other server when the battery level runs low, luckily Windows gives the ability to run a program on low and critical power level notifications, with adjustable power level triggers.

The most important factor with this idea is that the host server is able to communicate and send the script to the other server, in my current setup both servers are connected to the main network switch that does not have battery backup, meaning that during a power outage the servers will be unable to communicate and therefore unable to shut down safely.

The simple solution was to introduce another switch close to the servers that has power provided by the UPS, for this I chose a NetgearProsafe GS105 and connected both servers to it, with an uplink to the main switch. This also has the advantage of removing traffic away from the main hub when backups between servers take place.

With the servers connected via a backed up power source, it is time to create the shutdown command. On the host server connected to the signal of the UPS, create a .bat file using Notepad with the following line:

shutdown /s /f /m \\MACHINENAME /t 10 /c “Battery Backup Low”

This script tells the computer MACHINENAME to force a shut down in 10 seconds regardless of who is logged in, for those that are the message “Battery Backup Low” will be displayed. The script was then saved to the Windows directory to help avoid accidental deletion.

From the host server, open the power settings from the Control Panel, on the Alarms tab choose Alarm Action on the Low battery alarm field. Check the Run program box and choose the .bat file created to run on the low battery alarm. I chose the Low power instead of Critical to allow the other server to shut down as the Critical would be reserved for the host server itself to shut down.

For testing I chose to put the alarm settings pretty high, which makes the process quicker and also allows more time for a safe shutdown when on battery power. Apart from that the only way to test is to kill the power from the wall and see what happens, look for the other server setting down first as it will hit the Low battery first, then wait for the host server to shut down later. Expect the host server to last a little longer than expected as with the other server shut down, the battery life doubles on two identical machines when one is off.

I am using the 64bit build 10074 available publically via the windows preview site, and with the release date of 29th July just being announced, it shouldn’t be far from complete.

First up, starting it in VMware and logging in saw a spike in my host’s machines memory, true to form the new Windows is looking to be a memory hog with 1.1GB taken on boot, not bad but this is a clean copy without any 3rd party software and the inevitable bloatware that PC manufacturers will inevitably add.

A few minutes of looking around the desktop and i quickly get the feeling that its an OS I could live with daily. Without showstoppers that I had a few years back when trying the Windows 8 preview (a false sense of security and then stumped at trying to find the shutdown menu).

Luckily the basic layouts inside the settings are more of the same, with networking options staying the same since XP, however getting to them was a new experience as again the settings menu has had a shake up to try and make it more user friendly, but only alienates seasoned visitors to the control panel. Also to note for some reason the monitor and personalisation settings have been separated in this release, and Computer Management has been banished to only the Administrative Tools folder in the Start menu.

Moving on to the next new feature, Edge browser or as its still called in this build Project Spartan is the replacement to Internet Explorer. I’m not sure if Microsoft will ever get rid of the stigma that surrounded it’s attempts at browsers but on first look it is a much cleaner, almost sparse interface, borrowing very heavily from Chrome, even the drop down menu for past visited sites has been removed, the only thing I missed when converting from IE to Chrome.

Testing involved visiting YouTube and for a visualized machine it did rather well, apart from a few seconds of choppy video and audio while Spartan took CPU load to 100% of the two borrowed threads from a Gen 1 Intel Core i7 I gave Windows 10 it played flawlessly. That goes for the whole system too, animations were smooth and a neat trick i noticed that opening a program (sorry, app now) it would show a window instantly, filled with an icon while it loads, this stops the unsure wondering if a click to open a program was successful, and I’m sure will pay off on low powered devices the Microsoft appears to be targeting here.

Overall this build is impressive but this close to release its by no mean finished with bugs cropping up. In my case drop down menus rendered text incorrectly, the Photos app plain didn’t work and I hope the system icons were not final as they look like they were created in a late 90s copy of Macromedia Flash.

I have stuck with Windows 7 all this time and would I use my free upgrade option that Microsoft pushed to all Win 7 and 8 machines? Yes, but not immediately. Thats not based on the preview (although the bugs are not putting me at ease) but that a new OS always has problems at launch that need resolving. I recall XP at launch could have folders deleted via a URL, and Vista’s abysmal file transfer speeds.Its best for others to find the catastrophes before you do!

The HP Microserver I am running has four HDD bays all populated with 1TB drives in RAID 1 configuration, so to increase capacity I had to replace two of the disks. I went for two Western Digital Green 2TB disks as the 1TB variants I currently had proved reliable.

Moving the data over to a new disk would be tricky, the simplest solution would be to put the old drives into a USB caddy and plug into the server, but I had previously found that USB drives don’t like RAID. But since RAID1 means redundancy, I could tackle this another way…

Step1:

Know your hard drive configuration both in Windows and physically, the disks may have been installed for years and the order you installed them may be long forgotten. The HP Microserver is a compact unit so it’s impossible to follow the SATA cables from the drive to motherboard, so an online search did the trick.

Step2:

Knowing the hard drive layout, it’s time to break the RAID mirror by removing a disk and replacing with a larger one. Open the Computer Management window (Right click My Computer and choose Manage) then click Disk Management.

On this system I will be upgrading the volume labelled Data, therefore either Disk 2 or Disk 3 can be pulled out, after shutting the system down of course.

Step3:

After a restart to swap the drives Windows will detect the new blank drive, so a visit to the Disk Management console will greet you with this:

Follow the wizard to create a new BASIC partition, perform a quick format in NTFS, assign a drive letter, in this case I kept the label as New Volume.

Step 4:

Time to copy the data to a new drive, I prefer to use the xcopy command line as once run it does not interrupt and stop for user input such as copying system or read only files.

xcopy A: B: /s /c

Where A: represents the old data full drive, and B: the new empty one. Here the /s switch copies all sub-directories, the whole drive in the case of this command, and /c ignores errors that would interrupt the transfer.

The benefit is you can set it to run in the evening and it will copy unattended all night, great as it will take a while for a full 1TB drive.

Once completed its worth looking at the drive space to make sure it’s all transferred. At this size it may be a Gigabyte out but this is good enough.

Step 5:

Shut down and remove the final remaining old drive, and replace with the other new drive. Upon starting up again the Disk Management now looks a mess:

Not to fear, this requires a little housekeeping. Firstly remove the Missing drives that represent the drive you removed as the wont need to be represented on here anymore, right click on the missing drive’s volume and choose Delete Volume.

Then right click on the Missing drive icon and choose Delete Drive.

Repeat for the second missing volume and the old drives are no more.

Step 6:

Finally it’s time to mirror your new drives, this can be done the same as when your first mirror was set up. Right click the icon for the New Volume, choose Convert To Dynamic Disk

Then on the Simple Volume right click then Add Mirror, in the pop up dialog select the other new disk, identified as the one with all the Unallocated Space. Allow many hours for the mirror to rebuild and everything is back to normal, with added free space.

Amongst other web applications, WordPress is the most popular and it makes the install on Windows as simple as a few clicks.

So far I’ve tried it on Server 2003 R2 and Server 2012 R2, both with instant success.

It’s available at: http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx

Step 1: Start by downloading the basic version of the drivers from the HP website, choose Windows XP drivers if there are none for Windows 2003

Step 2: Open the executable file, allow it to extract and display the first setup screen. Here, depending on the printer chosen it may let you continue with the setup, or stop the installation there telling you the operating system is not supported.

Whatever the installation screen displays, DO NOT CLOSE THE WINDOW, while its open all the files you need are made available. Next navigate to your temp folder. TIP: Go to Start Menu à Run, and type  %temp%. This will bring up your temp files.

In the temp folder, look for a folder containing the setup files that were extracted as part of the installation, it will usually have .inf files that contain the printer model as part of the filename, below is an example of the drivers to install a HP C4700:

Step 3: At this point its best to copy (not move) the contents of the folder to a more convenient location. When a copy is made, you can close the installation utility as you have all the files in a new location.

Now navigate to Start > Settings > Printers and Faxes, and then start the Add new printer wizard.

After the intro splash, choose “Local printer attached to this computer” and un-check the box for “Automatically detect and install my Plug and Play printer”

Note: Step 4 is for installing a printer over a network, if you are connecting via USB, skip to step 5.

Step 4: Click next, on the next screen you will want to select “Create a new port” and choose “Standard TCP/IP port” from the drop-down menu, as below:

This brings up a new wizard, after the intro splash onto the add port screen, type the IP address of the printer:

NOTE: To save reconfiguration in the future, remember to set the printer to have a static IP address as you are not installing the program that find the printer on a dynamic IP address.

The next screen, leave the settings as a “Standard device type” and “Generic network card”. Clicking next brings you to printer software screen.

Step 5: Click the “Have Disk” button and navigate to the copy of the installation files.

Only .inf files show, and you want to choose the most generic file name that is similar to your device, in this case above hpC4700.inf seems the most obvious.

If the right file has been chosen, you see your printer display as below.

If you get a warning message about a digital signature, choose “Continue Anyways”, but make sure you downloaded the drivers from a reputable site, such as the official HP website.

The installation wizards copies the files, then choose to print a test page to make sure all is well, and your HP printer appears in your printers folder.