Howto Disable Volume Shadow Copy for Virtual Disks

[ToGe]

If your Volume Shadow Copy Service drives you nuts every time you run you virual machines, you can either a) disable it completely or b) disable it for virtual disks. As I generaly like the idea of being able to go back in time on my hard disks, I opted for b).

WARNING: Don't touch the registry unless you are absolutely sure about what you are doing!!!

If you want to disable shadow copies for all virtual disks and snapshots that are stored in the default location:

go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToSnapshot
add a new REG_MULTI_SZ
name it "VirtualBox" (or anything you prefer)
and enter "$UserProfile$\.VirtualBox\*.vdi /s" as value (excluding the quotation marks)

Background info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... 85%29.aspx

[Perryg]

Thank you for this contribution.