Current NovaBACKUP Version / Changelog

Current NovaBACKUP Version: 21.2.804

NOTE: Use the "Check for Updates" button in the Help menu of the software to find the latest version available. It can take about a week after a new version has been announced before the software will notify users an update is available or using "Help-> Check for Updates" will see a new version.

Download NovaBACKUP PC Agent and Server Agent Here
- Note: NovaBACKUP PC edition was renamed to PC Agent, and the Server and Business Essentials editions were combined into a single Server Agent edition in 21.0.x. All existing PC/Server/B.E. product licenses will continue to function as they used to, to retain the features of those editions.
- NovaBACKUP Hosted Cloud MSPs need to request a new build separately as the "public" release will not work for you. Please contact your account manager directly or request a new build via cloudrequest@novabackup.com
Learn more about Remote Central Management and Monitoring for NovaBACKUP using NovaBACKUP Central Management Here
- Central Management is only compatible with NovaBACKUP v19.0 and above.
- Central Management is intended to be installed on Windows Server Operating Systems

Issues Installing NovaBACKUP? Start Here: Installation ends prematurely on client install

Changelog

Please see the following for an at-a-glance overview of what was added or removed from the software:

NovaBACKUP Major Version Highlights

Microsoft Support Policy EoL (End of Life) Notes

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. The NovaBACKUP Support team is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported as of October 10, 2023.
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2,
- Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (all editions),
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011 as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
  - See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page or Product End of Support page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Applications are no longer supported as of April 11, 2023.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2013,
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
NovaBACKUP 21.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to support you on the above OS's or applications. And the same is true for x86 32-bit OS's, as the ability to install on x86 32-bit OS's has been removed in 21.0.x.

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Jump to a Release (Note: the jump points to get right to each listed version, using anchors, are not currently working)

Current NovaBACKUP Version / Changelog
Version 21.2.x
Version 21.1.x
- Unsupported NovaBACKUP Version / Changelog Archive
- Other Notes
Version 21.2.x

21.2.804

Release Date: 04AUG2025

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management
Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Client
NovaBACKUP Central Management
Known Issues or limitations with this version
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NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. The NovaBACKUP Support team is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported as of October 10, 2023.
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2,
- Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (all editions),
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011 as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
  - See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page or Product End of Support page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Applications are no longer supported as of April 11, 2023.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2013,
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
NovaBACKUP 21.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to support you on the above OS's or applications. And the same is true for x86 32-bit OS's, as the ability to install on x86 32-bit OS's has been removed in 21.0.x.

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21.2.422

Release Date: 22APR2025

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Fixed an issue with Triggers from CMon are not being sent out and display an error of Object reference not set to instance from the scheduled task.
Fixed an issue when trying to view or edit an Amazon S3 Storage Server throws a 400 error saying the URI is invalid.

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed an issue that was introduced in the 21.2.404.1 client version, that affected certain Windows Server OS's, other than Windows Server 2022, where backup jobs would fail to 'Local Backup' devices that use a Linux-based protected (secured) Samba network share as the "Folder or network path" value, with the backup log error "Unable to connect to network location: \\192.168.1.2\NAS\. Error: The network path was not found.".

Known Issues or limitations with this version

If any of your backup client machines have the "Threatlocker" app installed on them, you will need to add the NovaBACKUP 21.x Anti-Virus exclusions to Threatlocker in that case, otherwise the backup client "Automatically update before rurnning a backup" option / function (otherwise known as "auto-update") will likely not work properly, and in that case it will interfere with the ability for the client installer routine to run its process correctly, and it will tend to delete the NBK client services and .exe files, and block licensing and activation related functions, and it may create duplicate "Agent" entries in the CMon UI as well. Read the KB article that lists all of the executable files, and the program paths (you will need to exclude both types), to exclude in Threatlocker (or any AV software, but there is a special note about "Threatlocker" at the bottom) here.
Backup to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types, if the backup job selection alone contains only purely root of drive individual file selection in it (located on any drive), with no other folder of files that are not in the root of the drive, and with no FPI compatible plugins in it, will cause the FPI file backup job to be able to backup those files that way, but the restore index entry will error with "Unable to access device X" when it is accessed via the Restore tab, and you won't be able to browse that backup or restore files from that backup. To work around this issue you can either add one non-root of drive file or folder to the backup job selection, or add the "System State" plugin to the backup job selection, or remove those root of drive files that are already in the backup job selection (that are located on any drive). We are working to resolve that issue in a newer client version (no time estimate currently for that).
If the backup client machine has the Google Drive Desktop app installed (for the latest version in June 2025, and if the Google Drive app is using the default "Stream files" mode, not the other older "Mirror files" mode, which for the former will only create a virtual drive letter as your "Google Drive" path) and the Google Drive virtual drive letter is in the backup selection then that will cause the backup job to fail, and 1 error per Google Drive virtual drive letter or file on that virtual drive letter path, will be stated in the FPI (modern backup engine) backup job log contents at the top. This will occur if the "Open File Backup" option is either enabled or disabled in the backup job settings dialog. To work around that, you can select the Google Drive "My Drive" folder on the local C: OS drive path (which may require changing the Google Drive app preference to use "Mirror files" mode), not as the Google Drive virtual drive letter path, if you do want to backup your Google Drive folder that is, otherwise you can remove the Google Drive virtual drive letter path as well. The "Run As" and the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job options won't have any affect on the outcome. It has been confirmed that this issue only affects FPI device backups, it does not affect legacy device backups.
Backup to 'Local Backup' device type, where the "Folder or network path" field value in the device is a local disk based path, and is not a UNC network based path, if the target local drive file system is using the exFAT file system, and is not using the NTFS file system, then it can be a problem for the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job option (which can't be disabled in the 21.1.1219 client version for the 'Local Backup' device type, so that backup job option will always be enabled), that may lead to a partial amount of files getting skipped in the backup job, and indicated as "unable to store" per file or object in the resulting backup job log, but only in certain minor amount of cases. To try and workaround this problem outcome you can reformat the target local disk partition with the NTFS file system instead of the current exFAT file system.
Restore of any object types from a 'Local Backup' device, if that device uses a "Folder or network path" field value that is a protected network share path, if you see warnings in a Restore job log that state "fat table not found, invalid document .." and "fct: could not locate channel in any search path .." which may be repeated for the latter), and no objects are able to restore, it is likely that the Restore job Settings were defined as "Run as logged in user" (which would be the default) and that likely means that logged in user can't authenticate to the target protected network share, and so that user doesn't have the necessary privledges to restore objects in a backup on a device like that. You should try to change the "Run As" setting in the Restore job Settings, to use the "Run as specified user" setting instead, and specify the credentials of a local user there, which matches the same credentials as the 'Local Backup' device utilizes already. This issue will only affect restores not backups, we will look to make a restore like that more seamless in the future.
Hyper-V and SQL plug-in restore view (in the client GUI) is incorrectly showing folders and missing the plugin object data in the restore view in some cases with version 21.2.422 (and 21.2.404). In that case it can interfere with the ability to restore the plugin object data from a backup set that is older than the latest backup. Contact NBK Support if you have that problem, so that we can work with you. A code fix is being worked on for it.
Backup to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types may end up having a problem, with open file backup, where the single backup log warning text "*warning: could not create vss snapshot addtosnapshotset: idispatch error #8460", which may or may not also result in backup log warnings that state that objects of files were "unable to store", if the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job option is enabled (which it will be enabled by default for those two device types, but it can be disabled), if for instance you have a partition on a hard drive currently, that does have a drive letter assigned to it that is visible, on the client machine such as a "Recovery" partition, otherwise known as the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), that is located on the first "Disk 0" hard drive, which in that case is the Windows OS hard disk, where because that single "Recovery" partition doesn't use a file system that VSS is even compatible with, that alone can cause a problem with VSS. If you remove the drive letter from the "Recovery" partition then it has been seen to resolve that issue. The reason for this is that it probably is trying to do a VSS snapshot on each hard drive, and since the filesystem on that partition is not a filesystem that supports VSS it could be the cause of that above stated log warning. It would be suggested to remove the drive letter from a partition or drive such as that, which you would do via the "diskpart" command.
Backup to 'Local Backup' device type, where the "Folder or network path" field value in the device is a local disk based path, and is not a UNC network based path, if the target local drive file system is using the exFAT file system, and is not using the NTFS file system, then it can be a problem for the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job option if that job option is enabled (which it will be enabled by default for that device type, but it can be disabled), that may lead to a partial amount of files getting skipped in the backup job, and indicated as "unable to store" per file or object in the resulting backup job log, but only in certain minor amount of cases. To try and workaround this problem outcome you can reformat the target local disk partition with the NTFS file system instead of the current exFAT file system.
Backup/Restore/Mount functions, to or from 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types devices, may either run forever and not do anything on certain latest 24H2 build Windows OS's, that act as a Domain Controller (any DC type), and that do have UAC ("EnableLUA = 1") enabled in the OS (and that will be enabled by default normally). As a workaround for now you can disable UAC ("EnableLUA = 0") in the OS, by following the how-to KB article here (that has two workaround methods in it). We will look at how to not require any workarounds in a future release. Note: It is possible that even non-Domain Controller OS's will have similar functionality issues if UAC ("EnableLUA = 1") is enabled in the OS, so if you do run into an issue the main/first workaround in the above how-to KB article would be the method to try in that case.
DR/Image Backup functions in general won't function properly on a Windows Server 2025 OS that is acting as a Domain Controller (any DC type), and that has UAC ("EnableLUA = 1") enabled in the OS (and that will be enabled by default normally). This is due to the drdiag.exe service won't be able to stay started (which in turn will cause the other DR functions not to be able to run. As a workaround for now you can disable UAC ("EnableLUA = 0") in the OS, by following the how-to KB article here. We will look at how to not require that workaround in a future release.
Create DR Advanced method boot media, as long as the standard KB article instructions that are provided in the "Complete instructions here" button when clicked on, which is the first step in the Advanced method boot media Wizard, and that same KB article is here, may fail to create image in the "Create Image" function dialog on Windows 11 24H2 (April 2025 Updated) OS, if UAC is enabled in OS (that will be enabled by default in that specific stated OS and version), with the error stated as: (Error: oocode:CENgine::AssembleBootableImage:CreateSpecificWindowsImage:Result=General). For more details read the how-to KB article here.
Plugins query will fail altogether in the backup client on Windows Server 2025 (All OS editions, including the DataCenter and Standard editions) 24H2 (April 2025 Updated) OS that is promoted as a Domain Controller (for all DC types), if UAC is enabled in OS; no plugins will list and backup jobs that did have any plugins in them will fail totally (because the NBK plugins query will fail). In order to see this NBK client plugins query issue the only role on that OS that must exist is the "Active Directory Domain Services" role, and the machine has to be promoted as a Domain Controller (DC). However, if the machine is not acting as a Domain Controller then this problem won't be true and seen. Even if you do not need to backup a specific plugin the issue will make it so that no plugins can backup. For now we know that this client NBK plugins query issue can be worked around by disabling UAC in the registry with the command described here; and then do a reboot after that. For more details read the how-to KB article here (that has two workaround methods in it). We will look at how to not require that workarounds in a future release.
The CMon UI may list (detect) the "System State" plugin only in the "Create File Backup Job" dialog in the CMon UI, but it will not be able to list any of the other compatible plugins, including "Hyper-V" and "SQL", if they are installed, on Windows Server 2025 (All OS editions, including the DataCenter and Standard editions) 24H2 (April 2025 Updated) OS that is promoted as a Domain Controller (for all DC types), only the single "System State" plugin will list and backup jobs that did have any plugins in them will either run forever and won't end on their own, or will fail totally (because the NBK plugins query is not working correctly in the client in that case if this OS environment is present, as stated in the above "Known Issues or limitations with this version" section entry for that). For now we know that the client NBK plugins query issue (that leads to this CMon UI problem, to do with this current stated entry) can be worked around by disabling UAC in the registry, on the Agent (client) machine(s) in question, that do show this issue in the CMon UI, with the command described here; and then do a reboot after that; and we will look at how to not require that workaround in a future release.
The Mount function (which in this first iteration of the Mount feature can only support mounting files in a backup set) does not support mounting either a 'Local Backup' or a 'Cloud Backup' device backup if the backup itself that you want to mount contains any UNC network paths in it, or contains any plugins objects in it, including System State, Hyper-V, and MS SQL plugin data objects. The Mount operation will still attempt to mount a backup that does contain UNC network paths or plugins in it, but after it mounts it with the "Backup is successfully mounted at .." "Status:" field value in the client GUI "Status" tab dialog, it will automatically open the folder where that backup was mounted to and no files or otherwise objects will be listed at all in that mounted to folder (the mount to folder will be empty). This occurs due to a limitation that the Mount function does not currently support mounting a backup that contains any plugins data in it. We will look to improve on this later, to at least skip the UNC network paths and the plugins in the backup set during the mount operation, so that at least the local drive paths that are in a combined source backup set like that can still mount the local drive paths.
The Mount function "Stop" button in the "Status" tab dialog may not work if the actively running Mount job is already in the "Backup is successfully mounted at .." state. In that case you should first try to "UnMount" the backup set, by going to the "Restore" tab and click the "UnMount" button there to end it the normal way, or if the "UnMount" button does not work for you then you can end the running Mount job as a task, via the Windows Task Manager > Details tab, to end the actively running task named "engine.exe", then verify via the "Status" tab dialog that the Mount job is not running anymore, and if you must end the task that way you will also need to manually click the "UnMount" button in the "Restore" tab after that (as ending the task that way won't do that part for you, and you won't be able to mount anymore backups, as the "Mount" button won't be usable until then).
Backups to the 'Local Backup' device type, that utilizes the new modern FPI backup engine, will fail immediately, with 'FileSystemException : Cannot create directory 'C:\ProgramData\NovaStor\NovaStor NovaBACKUP\FPI\C: Drive\', for example if the "Device Name" field value that is utilized contains certain unsupported special characters in it, including any characters that Windows does not allow creating a file or folder with, which include if any of the following characters are in the "Device Name" field value: ' : . , \ / * ? " < > | . And backups to the 'Cloud Backup' device type, that also utilizes the new modern FPI backup engine, will fail fairly quickly as well, but with a different error. The 21.2.404.1 client added validation to the "Device Name" field to not allow those specific characters to be specified in a new 'Local Backup' device type to create, and a warning will show that will block you from using them to add the device even (but it won't be able to fix existing 'Local Backup' devices, in that case you will have to re-create the device).
The CMon UI allows you to specify up to 99 total characters in the "Name" field for the 'Local Backup' and the 'Cloud Backup' device types, but backups will fail to those two modern FPI backup engine device types if the number of characters that the end user did specify as the "Name" field value, exceeds around 32 total characters (but sometimes more though). We will add validation to the "Name" field to not allow the end user to specify more than 32 characters, which would stop you to add the device even (but it won't be able to fix existing 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' devices, in that case you will have to re-create the device). This issue should be resolved in a future "21.2.x" client public release version, which is forthcoming (but that may not be the very first 21.2.x client public release).
If you utilize the CMon UI to create a managed file backup job, if the first "Job Name" field value contains a colon ":" character, or an otherwise unsupported non-alphanumeric characters in it, that will cause various issues, including the fact that the job script file itself will not be able to save properly, which is based on the "Job Name" field value, on the local Windows file system of the client machine. To workaround this do not use the CMon UI to create managed file backup jobs with those characters that a file in Windows cannot be created with in that case. A Windows filename can't contain \ / : * ? < > | in it, and so a managed file backup job created via the CMon UI also cannot contain those characters, but there is no validation to stop you from using those characters if you do create the file backup job in the CMon UI that way (unlike if you create an unmanaged file backup job via the client UI, it does validate for those characters and won't let you save the backup job with them in it). The temp workaround for this issue is to remember to not try to utilize those characters in the managed backup job creation via the CMon UI (since the CMon UI does not validate the input characters, only the length of the job name). We are looking to correct this issue in the CMon UI only, as the client GUI already protects against this during file backup job creation.
If using the CMon UI to create a new managed backup job, if that backup job is already saved, if you edit the "Job Name" field value to change it to any degree, it will say that it saved with that new "Job Name" field value, and the currently viewed backup job will state that new "Job Name" field value, but the "Schedule" tab in CMon will still state the original backup job "Name" value, not the new name value there, as well as in the Client in the "Schedule" tab. We will be disabling the ability to change the "Job Name" field after the managed backup job has been saved once, as to not allow for that, in a future CMon Server version release.
System State plugin backup of "Certificate Services", which will only exist as a System State object on a Domain Controller enabled Windows Server OS machine, will fail to backup and no log will be produced if that object is included in the System State backup.
Hyper-V and MS SQL plugin backups located on both 'Cloud Backup' and 'Local Backup' devices cannot be restored to the original location (the default restore method choice, in the restore job options dialog), and if attempted it may error or show warnings and most likely will not restore properly in that case. The workaround is to restore to an alternate folder location for the restore method choice, not to the original location (which is the default choice for all forms of backups to restore).

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NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. The NovaBACKUP Support team is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported as of October 10, 2023.
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2,
- Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (all editions),
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011 as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
  - See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page or Product End of Support page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Applications are no longer supported as of April 11, 2023.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2013,
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
NovaBACKUP 21.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to support you on the above OS's or applications. And the same is true for x86 32-bit OS's, as the ability to install on x86 32-bit OS's has been removed in 21.0.x.

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21.2.404

Release Date: 07APR2025

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Upgraded the underlying framework from .NET 6 to .NET 8 for improved security, performance, and reliability.
Added the ability to create and run restore jobs from the CMon UI.
Added email address confirmation as a prerequisite for future two-factor authentication (2FA) to enhance account security.
Added the ability to see backup storage usage by computer within each Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage account.
Added the ability to restrict users from managing backup client setup installer settings.
Added the ability to delete all data from an Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage account.

NovaBACKUP Client

Added the ability to Mount the file backups (for the modern backup devices, for the local drive paths in the backup set) via the client GUI, in the "Restore" tab, and in that case the backup set will mount virtually in a folder on the local client machine, and a new Windows Explorer session will open to that mounted folder automatically for you (the default, original folder to Mount to is '%SystemRoot%\Temp\NovaBACKUP\mount\'. The mount to path can be changed in the "Restore" Settings dialog, to use either the "Restore to original location" (which is always the above path) or the "Restore to alternate location" (an empty local drive path that you manually specify). Once the backup is mounted with success the "Status:" field in the "Status" tab will inform you of the mounted to path. Once the file backup is mounted you can choose to browse the files and folders via Windows Explorer and view or copy from inside the backup to wherever you need to copy to after that, and when you are done with the mounted backup set you can utilize the "UnMount" function via the "Restore" tab in the client GUI, to unmount that mounted backup set (only one backup set can be mounted at a time). In that case the folder is a virtual mount, so it takes no actual or additional disk space on that local drive that the file backup is mounted to in that case. This feature at this point only works for purely file backups, and the backup itself cannot contain any plugins data in it, as that is a current limitation of the new "Mount" feature. Note: For the alternate folder mount location that you specify, that always has to be an empty folder otherwise the mount operation will fail, and the error will state that as the reason.
The CMon UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) unique identifier for a CMon Agent is persisted across backup client re-installs in order to preserve access to historical backup data on the server; this should avoid the problem of additional Agent entries would often be created in the Agents and Groups list, due to backup client re-installs that would often lead to creating a seperate Agent entry, which was a problem that had existed in all recent client versions. This has been fixed in 21.2.404.

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Fixed an issue with Restore view where trying to view file backup jobs that include Hybrid enabled file backup jobs for restore fails to load the jobs with error 'Unexpected File Name'.
Fixed an issue where the Restore view shows all the restore points as a single day if you import the DCT files instead of showing them as the day they were backed up.
Fixed an issue that would occur when trying to change the name of an Agent with a license key on it, resulted in an error.

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed an issue that was introduced in the 21.1.1219.1 client version, where the scanning ("Scanning" state in modern FPI device file backup jobs) speed that took minutes before can sometimes now take hours in certain cases. The scanning speed in general should be significantly faster in this version as compared to in the one prior 21.1.1219.1 client version.
Fixed an issue where in some cases files are not able to be restored because of error "FCT: Could not locate channel in any search path" even though files have been backed up. It reads the .DCT (dictionary) files from latest to oldest for validation, and it can now handle if the retention period is lowered, to perform a full prune then, and it checks if a device import is needed when .DCT (dictionary) files are missing.
Fixed a restore issue where if network paths were selected to restore, in a modern FPI device file backup, to either the original location or an alternate location, that would result in no files at all would restore, and the restore job would fail with error "Error e0020007: Invalid command specified. - Job ..".
Fixed a backup issue where the "Enable Open File Backup" backup job setting, for the modern FPI backup device types, did not get inherited correctly from client builds prior to 21.2 if the backup job has had settings changed in it before upgrading from a version older than 21.2.
Fixed an issue where backups to the 'Cloud Backup' device type (modern FPI backup device) will fail with an out of quota error even though you are not over quota, if your last backup was stopped via the "Max Run Time" setting of that backup job's schedule property.
Fixed an issue where changing either the encryption key (or disabling the encryption setting), or changing the 'Access key id' on a 'Cloud Backup' (S3) device via the CMon UI, if that device is not the 1st .0 S3 device "[WebPort.Device.0]", if more than 1 x S3 device exists in nsconfig.ini (2 x S3), modifies the wrong S3 device properties, for those two items incorrectly.
Fixed a backup issue where if a 'Local Backup' device, that utilizes the new modern FPI backup engine, where if the "Device Name" field value contains the same base value as the "Folder or network path" contains, then backup will fail to a device like that. For instance if the "Device Name" field value is "LS220" and the "Folder or network path" field value is "\\LS220DE668B\Share\NovaBACKUP", then that device will be able to save and create, but backups to that device will fail immediately. This can work now.
Fixed a backup (caused by a device problem) issue that affected the 'Local Backup' device type, where if special characters were utilized in the "Device Name" field value, during the add new 'Local Backup' device dialog, it would lead to the device will be able to save and create, but backups to a device like that would fail with the error "Unable to connect to network location: \. Error: The network name cannot be found.". The client for the "Local Backup' device type now validates the characters in that field during the add 'Local Backup' device that verifies and looks for certain common special characters in the "Device Name" field value, to tell you that special characters cannot be utilized in that field, to deny you from creating a device like that, to avoid the backup part of the issue.

Known Issues or limitations with this version

If any of your backup client machines have the "Threatlocker" app installed on them, you will need to add the NovaBACKUP 21.x Anti-Virus exclusions to Threatlocker in that case, otherwise the backup client "Automatically update before rurnning a backup" option / function (otherwise known as "auto-update") will likely not work properly, and in that case it will interfere with the ability for the client installer routine to run its process correctly, and it will tend to delete the NBK client services and .exe files, and block licensing and activation related functions, and it may create duplicate "Agent" entries in the CMon UI as well. Read the KB article that lists all of the executable files (or the program paths) to exclude in Threatlocker (or any AV software) here.
Backup to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types, if the backup job selection alone contains only purely root of drive individual file selection in it (located on any drive), with no other folder of files that are not in the root of the drive, and with no FPI compatible plugins in it, will cause the FPI file backup job to be able to backup those files that way, but the restore index entry will error with "Unable to access device X" when it is accessed via the Restore tab, and you won't be able to browse that backup or restore files from that backup. To work around this issue you can either add one non-root of drive file or folder to the backup job selection, or add the "System State" plugin to the backup job selection, or remove those root of drive files that are already in the backup job selection (that are located on any drive). We are working to resolve that issue in a newer client version (no time estimate currently for that).
If the backup client machine has the Google Drive Desktop app installed (for the latest version in June 2025, and if the Google Drive app is using the default "Stream files" mode, not the other older "Mirror files" mode, which for the former will only create a virtual drive letter as your "Google Drive" path) and the Google Drive virtual drive letter is in the backup selection then that will cause the backup job to fail, and 1 error per Google Drive virtual drive letter or file on that virtual drive letter path, will be stated in the FPI (modern backup engine) backup job log contents at the top. This will occur if the "Open File Backup" option is either enabled or disabled in the backup job settings dialog. To work around that, you can select the Google Drive "My Drive" folder on the local C: OS drive path (which may require changing the Google Drive app preference to use "Mirror files" mode), not as the Google Drive virtual drive letter path, if you do want to backup your Google Drive folder that is, otherwise you can remove the Google Drive virtual drive letter path as well. The "Run As" and the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job options won't have any affect on the outcome. It has been confirmed that this issue only affects FPI device backups, it does not affect legacy device backups.
Backup to 'Local Backup' device type, where the "Folder or network path" field value in the device is a local disk based path, and is not a UNC network based path, if the target local drive file system is using the exFAT file system, and is not using the NTFS file system, then it can be a problem for the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job option (which can't be disabled in the 21.1.1219 client version for the 'Local Backup' device type, so that backup job option will always be enabled), that may lead to a partial amount of files getting skipped in the backup job, and indicated as "unable to store" per file or object in the resulting backup job log, but only in certain minor amount of cases. To try and workaround this problem outcome you can reformat the target local disk partition with the NTFS file system instead of the current exFAT file system.
Restore of any object types from a 'Local Backup' device, if that device uses a "Folder or network path" field value that is a protected network share path, if you see warnings in a Restore job log that state "fat table not found, invalid document .." and "fct: could not locate channel in any search path .." which may be repeated for the latter), and no objects are able to restore, it is likely that the Restore job Settings were defined as "Run as logged in user" (which would be the default) and that likely means that logged in user can't authenticate to the target protected network share, and so that user doesn't have the necessary privledges to restore objects in a backup on a device like that. You should try to change the "Run As" setting in the Restore job Settings, to use the "Run as specified user" setting instead, and specify the credentials of a local user there, which matches the same credentials as the 'Local Backup' device utilizes already. This issue will only affect restores not backups, we will look to make a restore like that more seamless in the future.
Hyper-V and SQL plug-in restore view (in the client GUI) is incorrectly showing folders and missing the plugin object data in the restore view in some cases with version 21.2.404 (and 21.2.422). In that case it can interfere with the ability to restore the plugin object data from a backup set that is older than the latest backup. Contact NBK Support if you have that problem, so that we can work with you. A code fix is being worked on for it.
Backup to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types may end up having a problem, with open file backup, where the single backup log warning text "*warning: could not create vss snapshot addtosnapshotset: idispatch error #8460", which may or may not also result in backup log warnings that state that objects of files were "unable to store", if the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job option is enabled (which it will be enabled by default for those two device types, but it can be disabled), if for instance you have a partition on a hard drive currently, that does have a drive letter assigned to it that is visible, on the client machine such as a "Recovery" partition, otherwise known as the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), that is located on the first "Disk 0" hard drive, which in that case is the Windows OS hard disk, where because that single "Recovery" partition doesn't use a file system that VSS is even compatible with, that alone can cause a problem with VSS. If you remove the drive letter from the "Recovery" partition then it has been seen to resolve that issue. The reason for this is that it probably is trying to do a VSS snapshot on each hard drive, and since the filesystem on that partition is not a filesystem that supports VSS it could be the cause of that above stated log warning. It would be suggested to remove the drive letter from a partition or drive such as that, which you would do via the "diskpart" command.
Backup to 'Local Backup' device type, where the "Folder or network path" field value in the device is a local disk based path, and is not a UNC network based path, if the target local drive file system is using the exFAT file system, and is not using the NTFS file system, then it can be a problem for the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job option if that job option is enabled (which it will be enabled by default for that device type, but it can be disabled), that may lead to a partial amount of files getting skipped in the backup job, and indicated as "unable to store" per file or object in the resulting backup job log, but only in certain minor amount of cases. To try and workaround this problem outcome you can reformat the target local disk partition with the NTFS file system instead of the current exFAT file system.
Windows Server 2019, Server 2016, and Server 2012 R2 OS's may not be able to backup to Local Backup devices that utilize a network path that is a protected (secured) Linux based network share. In that case the backup jobs, that were working well to that same device in versions prior to 21.2.404, may stop working after upgrading to the 21.2.404 client version, and usually the backup fails quick with the error "Unable to connect to network location: \\192.168.1.2\NAS\. Error: The network path was not found.". The only known workaround for this for now, until we know more, or a fix is provided for it, is you must downgrade the client version to the one prior 21.1.1219 client version, which we aren't seeing any reports of problems with that client version for this OS specific backup problem. You can read the KB article here for more about this, and for the downgrade client version instructions. Note: Windows Server 2022 OS does not seem to have this backup problem. It is possible that this problem is due to particular Windows Updates. Windows 11 24H2 and Windows 10 OS's we aren't sure on but we have no reports on those particular OS's being affected. This issue was completely fixed in 21.2.422.
The Mount function (which in this first iteration of the Mount feature can only support mounting files in a backup set) does not support mounting either a 'Local Backup' or a 'Cloud Backup' device backup if the backup itself that you want to mount contains any UNC network paths in it, or contains any plugins objects in it, including System State, Hyper-V, and MS SQL plugin data objects. The Mount operation will still attempt to mount a backup that does contain UNC network paths or plugins in it, but after it mounts it with the "Backup is successfully mounted at .." "Status:" field value in the client GUI "Status" tab dialog, it will automatically open the folder where that backup was mounted to and no files or otherwise objects will be listed at all in that mounted to folder (the mount to folder will be empty). This occurs due to a limitation that the Mount function does not currently support mounting a backup that contains any plugins data in it. We will look to improve on this later, to at least skip the UNC network paths and the plugins in the backup set during the mount operation, so that at least the local drive paths that are in a combined source backup set like that can still mount the local drive paths.
The Mount function "Stop" button in the "Status" tab dialog may not work if the actively running Mount job is already in the "Backup is successfully mounted at .." state. In that case you should first try to "UnMount" the backup set, by going to the "Restore" tab and click the "UnMount" button there to end it the normal way, or if the "UnMount" button does not work for you then you can end the running Mount job as a task, via the Windows Task Manager > Details tab, to end the actively running task named "engine.exe", then verify via the "Status" tab dialog that the Mount job is not running anymore, and if you must end the task that way you will also need to manually click the "UnMount" button in the "Restore" tab after that (as ending the task that way won't do that part for you, and you won't be able to mount anymore backups, as the "Mount" button won't be usable until then).
Backups to the 'Local Backup' device type, that utilizes the new modern FPI backup engine, will fail immediately, with 'FileSystemException : Cannot create directory 'C:\ProgramData\NovaStor\NovaStor NovaBACKUP\FPI\C: Drive\', for example if the "Device Name" field value that is utilized contains certain unsupported special characters in it, including any characters that Windows does not allow creating a file or folder with, which include if any of the following characters are in the "Device Name" field value: ' : . , \ / * ? " < > | . And backups to the 'Cloud Backup' device type, that also utilizes the new modern FPI backup engine, will fail fairly quickly as well, but with a different error. The 21.2.404.1 client added validation to the "Device Name" field to not allow those specific characters to be specified in a new 'Local Backup' device type to create, and a warning will show that will block you from using them to add the device even (but it won't be able to fix existing 'Local Backup' devices, in that case you will have to re-create the device).
The CMon UI allows you to specify up to 99 total characters in the "Name" field for the 'Local Backup' and the 'Cloud Backup' device types, but backups will fail to those two modern FPI backup engine device types if the number of characters that the end user did specify as the "Name" field value, exceeds around 32 total characters (but sometimes more though). We will add validation to the "Name" field to not allow the end user to specify more than 32 characters, which would stop you to add the device even (but it won't be able to fix existing 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' devices, in that case you will have to re-create the device). This issue should be resolved in a future "21.2.x" client public release version, which is forthcoming (but that may not be the very first 21.2.x client public release).
If you utilize the CMon UI to create a managed file backup job, if the first "Job Name" field value contains a colon ":" character, or an otherwise unsupported non-alphanumeric characters in it, that will cause various issues, including the fact that the job script file itself will not be able to save properly, which is based on the "Job Name" field value, on the local Windows file system of the client machine. To workaround this do not use the CMon UI to create managed file backup jobs with those characters that a file in Windows cannot be created with in that case. A Windows filename can't contain \ / : * ? < > | in it, and so a managed file backup job created via the CMon UI also cannot contain those characters, but there is no validation to stop you from using those characters if you do create the file backup job in the CMon UI that way (unlike if you create an unmanaged file backup job via the client UI, it does validate for those characters and won't let you save the backup job with them in it). The temp workaround for this issue is to remember to not try to utilize those characters in the managed backup job creation via the CMon UI (since the CMon UI does not validate the input characters, only the length of the job name). We are looking to correct this issue in the CMon UI only, as the client GUI already protects against this during file backup job creation.
If using the CMon UI to create a new managed backup job, if that backup job is already saved, if you edit the "Job Name" field value to change it to any degree, it will say that it saved with that new "Job Name" field value, and the currently viewed backup job will state that new "Job Name" field value, but the "Schedule" tab in CMon will still state the original backup job "Name" value, not the new name value there, as well as in the Client in the "Schedule" tab. We will be disabling the ability to change the "Job Name" field after the managed backup job has been saved once, as to not allow for that, in a future CMon Server version release.
System State plugin backup of "Certificate Services", which will only exist as a System State object on a Domain Controller enabled Windows Server OS machine, will fail to backup and no log will be produced if that object is included in the System State backup.
Hyper-V and MS SQL plugin backups located on both 'Cloud Backup' and 'Local Backup' devices cannot be restored to the original location (the default restore method choice, in the restore job options dialog), and if attempted it may error or show warnings and most likely will not restore properly in that case. The workaround is to restore to an alternate folder location for the restore method choice, not to the original location (which is the default choice for all forms of backups to restore).

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NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. The NovaBACKUP Support team is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported as of October 10, 2023.
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2,
- Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (all editions),
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011 as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
  - See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page or Product End of Support page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Applications are no longer supported as of April 11, 2023.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2013,
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
NovaBACKUP 21.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to support you on the above OS's or applications. And the same is true for x86 32-bit OS's, as the ability to install on x86 32-bit OS's has been removed in 21.0.x.

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Version 21.1.x

21.1.1219

Release Date: 20DEC2024

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Added the ability to manage (list, view, and delete) the Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage devices associated with a specific Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage account.
Improved error message when trying to delete an Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage account which is associated with an Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage device.
Improved error handling if an error occurs during communication with an agent.
Update help documentation by removing references to unsupported and obsolete browsers, consolidated duplicate text, and simplified instructions.
Added the ability to manage file-level backup jobs using an Amazon S3 compatible archive storage device and retention, supporting a hybrid backup strategy.
Added the ability to restrict users in a specific role from managing other users.
All users can view and export their agent, license, and cloud storage details.
Added support for managing the archive storage and retention settings for a file-level backup job.
Added the ability to create and run restore jobs from the CMon API (and the ability to actually create and run restore jobs via the CMon UI itself will come in the first 21.2 public release that is forthcoming).
Added the ability to restrict users from managing backup client setup installer settings.
Added the ability to export the data in the “Agents and Groups” tree list.

NovaBACKUP Client

Optimize file scanning for backup to remove having to go through the scanning process multiple times to speed up backup. In our testing we have seen good improvemements in this area, as compared to any prior release. This only affects backups to the 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types.
Optimize file scanning for restore to remove having to go through the scanning process multiple times to speed up restore. This only affects restores from the 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types.
Implement and make use of the standard Windows OS "FilesNotToBackup" registry key, so that those (common) OS related files/folders are always excluded in backups to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device targets (that is in addition to the default exclusions 'nsexc.ini' file list). The exact registry key where those entries exist that the backup engine will read from (to exclude those items for backup) is: 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToBackup'.
For backups to the 'Cloud Backup' device type hide the retry messages in the user facing backup job Summary log, so that it is not so cluttered with retry messages (if they do occur). A retry message would be for instance for if the engine gets disconnected from the cloud based storage target and then it has to retry that connection. The messages will still be stored in the *.fpi.log file for each backup job run.

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Improved the error message when trying to update an agent with an invalid backup client license key.
Improved error handling if an error occurs when calculating the used space for cloud storage accounts and storage servers.
Fixed issue which may occur when validating the path of a network device.
Fixed issue which may prevent enabling retention for a file-level backup job.
Fixed issue which may occur when updating an Amazon S3 compatible device, specifically when there are multiple Amazon S3 compatible devices configured.

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed an issue where some client installations when backing up to a 'Cloud Backup' device target were constantly deleting and importing the indexes causing warnings in the logs and longer than needed backup times.
Fixed an issue where if the 'FPIDataDir' variable in nsconfig.ini file was defined and set to a different location than the default value, that after an upgrade of the existing client to a newer client version 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' based backups will fail until you delete the default "FPI" folder (in '\ProgramData..\NovaBACKUP\').
Fixed an issue where backups to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types would fail with out of quota error even though you are not over quota, if your last backup was stopped via Max Run Time on a schedule.
Fixed an issue with the backup job "Filters" tab settings that cause the current backup JSON file to become over 10MB and not process correctly, for backups to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' devices, simply due to the shear large number of files that the backup job run would have to scan for and filter for.
Fixed an issue in the client Restore tab in 'Local Storage' category (used by the 'Local Backup' device type) for the error message "Unable to access device My local storage device" is displayed when trying to expand a folder within a backup set for restores from a 'Local Backup' device type in certain scenarios. And the same type of error occured when using CMon UI to expand a known folder within a backup set, without first having to expand the root node (and in production, this can happen when the machine running the backup client agent is restarted and comes back online, and the user wants to continue expanding folders within a backup set for example).
Fixed an issue with if there are multiple encryption key names with the same value both import and restore should save new entries into the nsconfig if needed for import/restore.
Fixed an issue where a 'Local Backup' or a 'Cloud Backup' device import is attempted, with multiple encryption keys, is not asking the user for the missing encryption key, so the import will simply fail, with log error "Error e0010008: An invalid device was specified. - Job processing failure".
Resolved a problem with how the default exclusions (nsexc.ini) were sometimes not being applied correctly to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device target backup jobs.

Known Issues or limitations with this version

If any of your backup client machines have the "Threatlocker" app installed on them, you will need to add the NovaBACKUP 21.x Anti-Virus exclusions to Threatlocker in that case, otherwise the backup client "Automatically update before rurnning a backup" option / function (otherwise known as "auto-update") will likely not work properly, and in that case it will interfere with the ability for the client installer routine to run its process correctly, and it will tend to delete the NBK client services and .exe files, and block licensing and activation related functions, and it may create duplicate "Agent" entries in the CMon UI as well. Read the KB article that lists all of the executable files (or the program paths) to exclude in Threatlocker (or any AV software) here.
Backup to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types, if the backup job selection alone contains only purely root of drive individual file selection in it (located on any drive), with no other folder of files that are not in the root of the drive, and with no FPI compatible plugins in it, will cause the FPI file backup job to be able to backup those files that way, but the restore index entry will error with "Unable to access device X" when it is accessed via the Restore tab, and you won't be able to browse that backup or restore files from that backup. To work around this issue you can either add one non-root of drive file or folder to the backup job selection, or add the "System State" plugin to the backup job selection, or remove those root of drive files that are already in the backup job selection (that are located on any drive). We are working to resolve that issue in a newer client version (no time estimate currently for that).
If the backup client machine has the Google Drive Desktop app installed (for the latest version in June 2025, and if the Google Drive app is using the default "Stream files" mode, not the other older "Mirror files" mode, which for the former will only create a virtual drive letter as your "Google Drive" path) and the Google Drive virtual drive letter is in the backup selection then that will cause the backup job to fail, and 1 error per Google Drive virtual drive letter or file on that virtual drive letter path, will be stated in the FPI (modern backup engine) backup job log contents at the top. This will occur if the "Open File Backup" option is either enabled or disabled in the backup job settings dialog. To work around that, you can select the Google Drive "My Drive" folder on the local C: OS drive path (which may require changing the Google Drive app preference to use "Mirror files" mode), not as the Google Drive virtual drive letter path, if you do want to backup your Google Drive folder that is, otherwise you can remove the Google Drive virtual drive letter path as well. The "Run As" and the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job options won't have any affect on the outcome. It has been confirmed that this issue only affects FPI device backups, it does not affect legacy device backups.
Backup to 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types may end up having a problem, with open file backup, where the single backup log warning text "*warning: could not create vss snapshot addtosnapshotset: idispatch error #8460", which may or may not also result in backup log warnings that state that objects of files were "unable to store", if the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job option is enabled (which can't be disabled in the 21.1.1219 client version for those two device types, so that backup job option will always be enabled), if for instance you have a partition on a hard drive currently, that does have a drive letter assigned to it that is visible, on the client machine such as a "Recovery" partition, otherwise known as the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), that is located on the first "Disk 0" hard drive, which in that case is the Windows OS hard disk, where because that single "Recovery" partition doesn't use a file system that VSS is even compatible with, that alone can cause a problem with VSS. If you remove the drive letter from the "Recovery" partition then it has been seen to resolve that issue. The reason for this is that it probably is trying to do a VSS snapshot on each hard drive, and since the filesystem on that partition is not a filesystem that supports VSS (only the two ReFS and NTFS file systems are compatible) it could be the cause of that above stated log warning. It would be suggested to remove the drive letter from a partition or drive such as that, which you would do via the "diskpart" command.
Backup to 'Local Backup' device type, where the "Folder or network path" field value in the device is a local disk based path, and is not a UNC network based path, if the target local drive file system is using the exFAT file system, and is not using the NTFS file system, then it can be a problem for the "Open File Backup" (VSS) backup job option (which can't be disabled in the 21.1.1219 client version for the 'Local Backup' device type, so that backup job option will always be enabled), that may lead to a partial amount of files getting skipped in the backup job, and indicated as "unable to store" per file or object in the resulting backup job log, but only in certain minor amount of cases. To try and workaround this problem outcome you can reformat the target local disk partition with the NTFS file system instead of the current exFAT file system.
File restores from the 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types, that utilize the modern FPI backup engine, may fail to restore files from the correct selected backup restore index entry, in certain scenarios and use cases, if the backup data had already been pruned (retented, deleted by way of retention setting in the backup job) by that restore time. The client GUI, in the "Restore" tab of the client, for the 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types, that utilize the modern FPI backup engine, would list files inside backup restore index records, for files that had already been retented. We have worked on cleaning up those restore index records, as to not list files or folders that no longer even exist in the backup set data to be able to restore, if it had since been deleted by the Retention setting in the backup job already by the time that the file restore job executed. This issue should be resolved in a future "21.2.x" client public release version, which is forthcoming (but that may not be the very first 21.2.x client public release).
Backups to the 'Local Backup' device type, that utilizes the new modern FPI backup engine, will fail immediately, with 'FileSystemException : Cannot create directory 'C:\ProgramData\NovaStor\NovaStor NovaBACKUP\FPI\C: Drive\', for example if the "Device Name" field value that is utilized contains certain unsupported special characters in it, including any characters that Windows does not allow creating a file or folder with, which include if any of the following characters are in the "Device Name" field value: ' : . , \ / * ? " < > | . And backups to the 'Cloud Backup' device type, that also utilizes the new modern FPI backup engine, will fail fairly quickly as well, but with a different error. We will add validation to the "Device Name" field to not allow those specific characters to be specified in a new 'Local Backup' device type to create, and a warning will show that will block you from using them to add the device even (but it won't be able to fix existing 'Local Backup' devices, in that case you will have to re-create the device). This issue should be resolved in a future "21.2.x" client public release version, which is forthcoming (but that may not be the very first 21.2.x client public release).
The 'Local Backup' device type, that utilizes the new modern FPI backup engine, cannot for the "Device Name" field value (which equates to the "Name" field in CMon UI for that field value) contains the same characters that at least the base (first) portion of the "Folder or network path" contains in it for the characters, at least if the "Folder or network path" field value is stated as a UNC network folder path that is. For instance if the "Device Name" field value is "LS220" and the "Folder or network path" field value is "\\LS220DE668B\Share\NovaBACKUP", then the device will be able to create with no problem, but the backups to that device will fail immediately in that case. This issue should be resolved in a future "21.2.x" client public release version, which is forthcoming (but that may not be the very first 21.2.x client public release).
The client GUI allows you to specify an unlimited number of characters in the "Device Name" field for the 'Local Backup' and the 'Cloud Backup' device types, but backups will fail to those two modern FPI backup engine device types if the number of characters that the end user did specify as the "Device Name" field value, exceeds around 32 total characters (but sometimes more though). We will add validation to the "Name" field to not allow the end user to specify more than 32 characters, which would stop you to add the device even (but it won't be able to fix existing 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' devices, in that case you will have to re-create the device). This issue should be resolved in a future "21.2.x" client public release version, which is forthcoming (but that may not be the very first 21.2.x client public release).
The CMon UI allows you to specify up to 99 total characters in the "Name" field for the 'Local Backup' and the 'Cloud Backup' device types, but backups will fail to those two modern FPI backup engine device types if the number of characters that the end user did specify as the "Name" field value, exceeds around 32 total characters (but sometimes more though). We will add validation to the "Name" field to not allow the end user to specify more than 32 characters, which would stop you to add the device even (but it won't be able to fix existing 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' devices, in that case you will have to re-create the device). This issue should be resolved in a future "21.2.x" client public release version, which is forthcoming (but that may not be the very first 21.2.x client public release).
The "Scanning" state (an early stage of the backup job run) of a file backup job to either a 'Local Backup' or a 'Cloud Backup' device can take much longer than normal to complete that single stage, for a large number of files selection in the file backup job in that case (for the total number of objects to need to scan the source selection paths on), so a backup job that used to take 15 minutes to complete the "Scanning" state (stage) of a backup job run, using the one older 21.1.1010.1 client version, may now take 2 hours to complete that state, using 21.1.1219.1. There is no available workaround that we can provide you with for this amount of time problem. This issue has been fixed in the client code already and will be in the very next "21.2" client public release version, which is forthcoming.
If you utilize the CMon UI to create a managed file backup job, if the first "Job Name" field value contains a colon ":" character, or an otherwise unsupported non-alphanumeric characters in it, that will cause various issues, including the fact that the job script file itself will not be able to save properly, which is based on the "Job Name" field value, on the local Windows file system of the client machine. To workaround this do not use the CMon UI to create managed file backup jobs with those characters that a file in Windows cannot be created with in that case. A Windows filename can't contain \ / : * ? < > | in it, and so a managed file backup job created via the CMon UI also cannot contain those characters, but there is no validation to stop you from using those characters if you do create the file backup job in the CMon UI that way (unlike if you create an unmanaged file backup job via the client UI, it does validate for those characters and won't let you save the backup job with them in it). The temp workaround for this issue is to remember to not try to utilize those characters in the managed backup job creation via the CMon UI (since the CMon UI does not validate the input characters, only the length of the job name). We are looking to correct this issue in the CMon UI only, as the client GUI already protects against this during file backup job creation.
Restores of file backups on a 'Cloud Backup' and 'Local Backup' device file backup error: 'Error e0020007: Invalid command specified. - Job processing failure', when trying to restore network paths, in a backup that contains network paths in it, even for a single UNC "node" name, for even a single file or single folder, or from the top level root UNC "node" name object even, to either the original location or to an alt. folder location, in that case the backup job will end with that stated error within 1 second, and no files will restore. The temp workaround for this issue is to uninstall the 21.1.1219.1 client and install the one prior 21.1.1010.1 client (available at https://novabackup.com/downloads in the "Previous Version Downloads" section of that page). We have a more detailed KB article for that workaround method to read here. We are looking to resolve this issue.
If an encryption key with non-alphanumeric characters (such as the backslash "\" character, or both of the quote characters ' and ") was utilized for a 'Cloud Backup' and 'Local Backup' device, then backup, restore, and import operations may all fail with a JSON parse error (in all 21.1.x client versions, where the last working version that could handle this was 21.0.410.1 in that case). The use of the ' and " characters in an encryption key that is applied on 'Cloud Backup' and 'Local Backup' device types in any 21.1.x client version will cause various problems, if the encryption key that you have specified on the backup device (or if during the "Cloud Account Registration" workflow the user account that you had registered with, that applied as your Cloud device encryption key in that case, which is the default to do that), if that password did contain any of those characters in it, in any position, that would lead to this overall backup/restore/and import problem. To workaround this issue you can, for now until that problem is resolved in the code, change the encryption key on the device to not contain any of those 3 x characters in it, then retry the backup/restore/and import operations again after that. Any backups that did contain those characters however won't be able to import, only the backups that DO NOT contain those stated characters will import in the end. The section of the keychain that we keep won't be able to handle the key that did contain those stated characters in it, in that case. We are looking to resolve this issue.
If after a client uninstall and then a client re-install is done after that, where during the client uninstall process you had disabled the "Remove all logs and media indexes" checkbox option, which is a question that will always be asked to you during a client uninstall, as to keep the user data in place for the client during the uninstall process, the already specified and correct CMon Server details may be cleared (nulled out), because that 'ManagementServer.Agent.Service.exe.config' file will be deleted as part of the uninstall, which holds those configured values, which may then lead to the Cloud backup job log error: 'Error e0010029: Cloud Backups have been disabled, please refresh the connection to the Management Server. - Job processing failure' if the 'Backup Client Agent Service', which is part of a Typical client install, hasn't connected to a CMon Server once in 30 days, and that Cloud backup log error may be seen in that case if you didn't realize about that detail, either after the uninstall or within that next 30 days period, about that problem and re-enter the CMon Server details manually in that case. We have a more detailed KB article for that workaround method to read here. We are looking to resolve this issue.
If using the CMon UI to create a new managed backup job, if that backup job is already saved, if you edit the "Job Name" field value to change it to any degree, it will say that it saved with that new "Job Name" field value, and the currently viewed backup job will state that new "Job Name" field value, but the "Schedule" tab in CMon will still state the original backup job "Name" value, not the new name value there, as well as in the Client in the "Schedule" tab. We will be disabling the ability to change the "Job Name" field after the managed backup job has been saved once, as to not allow for that, in a future CMon Server version release.
System State plugin backup of "Certificate Services", which will only exist as a System State object on a Domain Controller enabled Windows Server OS machine, will fail to backup and no log will be produced if that object is included in the System State backup.
Hyper-V and MS SQL plugin backups located on both 'Cloud Backup' and 'Local Backup' devices cannot be restored to the original location (the default restore method choice, in the restore job options dialog), and if attempted it may error or show warnings and most likely will not restore properly in that case. The workaround is to restore to an alternate folder location for the restore method choice, not to the original location (which is the default choice for all forms of backups to restore).

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NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. The NovaBACKUP Support team is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported as of October 10, 2023.
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2,
- Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (all editions),
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011 as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
  - See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page or Product End of Support page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Applications are no longer supported as of April 11, 2023.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2013,
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
NovaBACKUP 21.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to support you on the above OS's or applications. And the same is true for x86 32-bit OS's, as the ability to install on x86 32-bit OS's has been removed in 21.0.x.

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21.1.1010

Release Date: 14OCT2024

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Added the ability to manage (list, view, and delete) the Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage devices associated with a specific Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage account.
Improved error message when trying to delete an Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage account which is associated with an Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage device.
Improved error handling if an error occurs during communication with an agent.
Update help documentation by removing references to unsupported and obsolete browsers, consolidated duplicate text, and simplified instructions.
Added the ability to manage file-level backup jobs using an Amazon S3 compatible archive storage device and retention, supporting a hybrid backup strategy.
Added the ability to restrict users in a specific role from managing other users.

NovaBACKUP Client

Updated most application files' metadata to contain the full version number, as displayed in the application files' properties.
The "Quota Summary" field (section) of a backup log, for backup jobs that store direct to the 'Cloud Backup' (S3) device type, and that store to a 'Local Backup' device if the backup job is Hybrid Enabled in that case, that do have a quota on the 'Cloud Backup (S3) device itself, will now display the actual device name as a value there, which is more useful for Hybrid Enabled backup jobs that do not state the Cloud Backup (S3) device name anywhere else in the backup log in that case.

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Improved the error message when trying to update an agent with an invalid backup client license key.
Improved error handling if an error occurs when calculating the used space for cloud storage accounts and storage servers.

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed a critical issue where restore of file level backups, of local drive paths or UNC network paths as the source selection (file set), from all devices types (modern and legacy), may fail to restore to both the original location and to an alternate location, due to a timing issue. The issue normally wouldn't affect a Cloud Backup (S3) device restore though. The error would be a “Connection to Backup Service interrupted” exception at restore job start, and no restore log would be created to be able to view.
Fixed issue where an error pop-up may be seen to occur when querying Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) when the backup client setup installer is launched (at the start of a client installation).
Fixed issue where the 'Quota Summary' field (section) in the backup log for backups to 'Local Backup' (local drive based and network based) devices, that do not have a quota on the device, would display for no real use case reason. Now the 'Quota Summary' field (section) will only be visible in backup logs (at the bottom) if the device does have a quota on it, and only for 'Cloud Backup' S3 device backup jobs, and for Hybrid enabled backup jobs in that case (to a "NovaBACKUP Cloud" named device).
Fixed issue where the backup to 'Cloud Backup' (S3) device can fail with "Error e0010019: Unable to encrypt/decrypt - Job processing failure" error and multiple "missingkeyname" errors while in the pruning state.
Fixed issue where the Microsoft SQL plugin backup to the 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types only cannot backup databases even though the users, including admin and 'SYSTEM', in SQL SSMS have the public and sysadmin roles enabled, the failed job error is "Querying SQL info returned no info. Possibly a permissions issue.", if WIndows is logged in or logged out at the time of job execution.
Fixed issue where the Microsoft SQL plugin backup to the 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types only, if the "sysadmin" role is not enabled on the 'SYSTEM' user in SQL SSMS, and if the job is scheduled and Run As set to default "Run as logged in user" will cause the entire C: drive (and possibly other local drives) to backup, if Windows is logged out of at the time of job execution.

Known Issues or limitations with this version

The default exclusions in the client do have known some problems, that first started in the 21.1.903 version and continue in the 21.1.1010 version, which can lead to either the default or custom file path exclusions not working properly, and for the 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types that were added in 21.x, to ignore some of the path exclusions and still attempt to backup those folder or file paths in that case. The result of this problem is that more files / folders may backup that are not needed, and that did not ever backup before (two folder examples would be "System Volume Information" and $RECYCLE.BIN"). For now you can try to manually exclude paths like that (for either folders or files) via the Backup tab in the client, and in addition to that you can edit the default exclusions file (nsexc.ini) by using this KB article guide here.
System State plugin backup of "Certificate Services", which will only exist as a System State object on a Domain Controller enabled Windows Server OS machine, will fail to backup and no log will be produced if that object is included in the System State backup.
Hyper-V and MS SQL plugin backups located on both 'Cloud Backup' and 'Local Backup' devices cannot be restored to the original location (the default restore method choice, in the restore job options dialog), and if attempted it may error or show warnings and most likely will not restore properly in that case. The workaround is to restore to an alternate folder location for the restore method choice, not to the original location (which is the default choice for all forms of backups to restore).
In certain cases (but where that is dependent on the "depth" of the network based folder value) if the CMon UI is utilized to create a Local Backup (network based) device where the "Folder" field value contains a UNC network path (not a local drive path), you may be required to specify a trailing backslash "\" character at the end of the 'Folder' field value, which if the device is added that way is not tested and confirmed to test it prior to the device add (save), and in that case backup to that device may fail, normally with the error "Error: The network path was not found.". You can read the KB article on how to work around that here.

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NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. The NovaBACKUP Support team is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported as of October 10, 2023.
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2,
- Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (all editions),
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011 as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
  - See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page or Product End of Support page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Applications are no longer supported as of April 11, 2023.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2013,
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
NovaBACKUP 21.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to support you on the above OS's or applications. And the same is true for x86 32-bit OS's, as the ability to install on x86 32-bit OS's has been removed in 21.0.x.

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21.1.903

Release Date: 5SEP2024

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Added support to create and manage Local and Network devices.
Added support to create and manage Backup Jobs that target Local and Network devices.
Added support to push the license down to an Agent from the Management Console.
Removes the need to add a NovaBACKUP Cloud Storage Account to an Agent in order to license the Agent. The Agent with v21.1 and higher software will be licensed via inherited license from the Group that it is located in.
Changed the default retention for new Backup Jobs to be enabled and set to 30 days.
General performance improvements due to upgrading software framework used for the UI.
Improved performance and ease of use on downloading Custom Backup Client installers.
Improved error handling when dealing with Cloud Storage Accounts.

NovaBACKUP Client

Added new Hybrid Backup feature, for the 'Local Backup' device type to be able to take the at rest backup and copy it to the 'Cloud Backup' device type. The retention options are configurable for each of the two devices, inside the Hybrid Backup enabled backup job.
Added enhanced logging and fixed various issues where the software could crash in certain circumstances.
Changed the scanning algorithm to increase the speed of which the file list is prepared and ensure that non-necessary paths are not scanned. Note: This change did make it so that you may need to edit your existing Default Exclusions file otherwise certain excluded files and folders may not be excluded (read the KB article for more about that here).
Enhanced the configuration of the Local Devices for when choosing NAS, Network paths, and Mapped Network Drives as the destination to save the storage.
Optimized the retention algorithm to ensure that all backups of the backup job are retained correctly and increased the speed of this cleanup step.
Cleaned up user facing log files in order to minimize noise, and show more pertinent information.

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Fixed issue where adding and then removing a group’s backup client setup installer (or visa-versa) does not save changes.

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed issue where the Log Collector fails to collect the ClientLogs directory when the Operating System, for the current singed in user that runs that app to collect the NovaBACKUP client logs, is configured to use a decimal symbol other than a period.
Fixed issue where the encoded (which would not be human readable in that case) job name for Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' restore jobs, including in Logs tab (Job Name column), Restore tab (Location [Device] column), and in the Restore job log, so that the unencoded job name is displayed instead of the encoded job name in that case.

Known Issues or limitations with this version

Microsoft SQL plugin backup to the 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types only, if the "sysadmin" role is not enabled on the 'SYSTEM' user in SQL, and if the job is scheduled and Run As set to default "Run as logged in user" will cause the entire C: drive (and possibly other local drives) to backup, if Windows is logged out of at the time of job execution. The workaround until this is fixed in the client is to make sure that the “sysadmin” role is enabled for the 'SYSTEM’ user in SQL. Note: This bug was resolved in 21.1.1010.
The default exclusions in the client do have known some problems, that first started in the 21.1.903 version and continue in the 21.1.1010 version, which can lead to either the default or custom file path exclusions not working properly, and for the 'Local Backup' and 'Cloud Backup' device types that were added in 21.x, to ignore some of the path exclusions and still attempt to backup those folder or file paths in that case. The result of this problem is that more files / folders may backup that are not needed, and that did not ever backup before (two folder examples would be "System Volume Information" and $RECYCLE.BIN"). For now you can try to manually exclude paths like that (for either folders or files) via the Backup tab in the client, and in addition to that you can edit the default exclusions file (nsexc.ini) by using this KB article guide here.
System State plugin backup of "Certificate Services", which will only exist as a System State object on a Domain Controller enabled Windows Server OS machine, will fail to backup and no log will be produced if that object is included in the System State backup.
Hyper-V and MS SQL plugin backups located on both 'Cloud Backup' and 'Local Backup' devices cannot be restored to the original location (the default restore method choice, in the restore job options dialog), and if attempted it may error or show warnings and most likely will not restore properly in that case. The workaround is to restore to an alternate folder location for the restore method choice, not to the original location (which is the default choice for all forms of backups to restore).
In certain cases (but where that is dependent on the "depth" of the network based folder value) if the CMon UI is utilized to create a Local Backup (network based) device where the "Folder" field value contains a UNC network path (not a local drive path), you may be required to specify a trailing backslash "\" character at the end of the 'Folder' field value, which if the device is added that way is not tested and confirmed to test it prior to the device add (save), and in that case backup to that device may fail, normally with the error "Error: The network path was not found.". You can read the KB article on how to work around that here.

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NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. The NovaBACKUP Support team is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported as of October 10, 2023.
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2,
- Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (all editions),
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011 as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
  - See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page or Product End of Support page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Applications are no longer supported as of April 11, 2023.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2013,
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
NovaBACKUP 21.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to support you on the above OS's or applications. And the same is true for x86 32-bit OS's, as the ability to install on x86 32-bit OS's has been removed in 21.0.x.

Version 21.0.x

21.0.410

Release Date: 12APR2024

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Added the ability to view the details of a local storage device on an agent using the API.
Added the ability to delete a local storage device on an agent using the API.
Added the ability to digitally sign a backup client setup installer with a software publisher certificate.

NovaBACKUP Client

Remove the "(optional)" text at the end of the "Username" and "User password" fields in "Local Backup" and "Legacy Network Device" device types "Network Credentials" tab, seen if adding or editing those two device types, for all non-English client languages. The reason for this change is that the "Username" and "Password" fields are never optional fields in the "Network Credentials" tab for those two device types, only the "Domain name" field would be optional, if the user to be specified is not a Active Directory domain based user.
Display the correct "Job Name" value for "Local Backup'" device type restores, including in the Logs tab (first "Job Name" column), and in the Restore Job Log (top left); which is NULL (blank) for both now.
Change the wording of the "Drive and Folder Path" field name in the “Local Backup” device type "Local Backup" tab dialog, to "Folder or Network Path".
Hide the 'Import' string when doing an automatic import in the log file.
Hide some of the extraneous prune portions of the log in the client log for both Local and Cloud backup device types (the non-legacy backup device types).
Translate the error string "Network error! Unable to access this network share, please check credentials and disconnect existing connections first.", that can be seen when adding or modifying a "Local Backup" device type, if there is already an open connection to that same target network path folder at the time of trying to verify and add the device (read the KB article for more about that here), for all other non-English client languages.
Translate the error string "Network share busy! Please disconnect the network share and try again.", that can be seen when adding or modifying a "Local Backup" device type, if there is already an open connection to that same target network path folder at the time of trying to verify and add the device (read the KB article for more about that here), for all other non-English client languages.

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Going to the Jobs tab, Notification Triggers, or Notification History throws an error saying 'The request could not be parsed'.

NovaBACKUP Client

If an "xSP Cloud Storage" device exists (no matter if the 'ShowLegacyDevices' flag is enabled or not) starting in 21.0.319.1 that breaks the ability to expand the list of backups on that xSP Cloud device in the Restore tab dialog.
21.0.319.1 broke the Home tab > "Cloud Backup" function, and Device tab > "Click HERE to add .." function, the error is "Unable to get desired device type info to continue the signup process" (seen if "ShowLegacyDevices" flag is not enabled).
"Cloud Backup" S3 FPI logs are putting the 'data size' as 0b instead of the size it should be.
Backup crashes if you System State and another plug-in selected for backup at the same time in the same backup job.

Removed Features

All NovaBACKUP products

Temporarily removed the digital signature on all files because the digital signature has expired. Note: The digital signature was a part of the first 21.0.319.1 public release, but that had to be removed in this second 21.0.410.1 public release. This change may cause some Anti-Virus software products to falsely detect an issue with NovaBACKUP 21.0.410.1 installer .exe files, or otherwise .exe installed files, that no longer contain that digital signature on the .exe files, because that digital signature is not present in 21.0.410.1 (for all products). And one AV app that we know of that will falsely detect a problem with 21.0.410.1 is the Norton Anti-Virus series of products. To get around this problem you may have to specifically allow or exclude the NovaBACKUP client main installer .exe and/or the .exe files that do get installed; and to perform the exclusions in your AV product read the KB article here. The Anti-Virus software will normally show an error or pop-up in the AV log to tell you which NovaBACKUP .exe files were flagged this way, or you will need to add an exception to allow the .exe files to be able to execute. This item will be corrected in the next 21.x public release after 21.0.410.1 (no timetable for that).

Known Issues or limitations with this version

System State plugin backup of "Certificate Services", which will only exist as a System State object on a Domain Controller enabled Windows Server OS machine, will fail to backup and no log will be produced if that object is included in the System State backup to the newer non-Legacy Local Storage and Cloud Backup device types. This object does not exist on non-Domain Controller based Windows machines, so unless that is the case then System State backup should work fine for you. For Domain Controller machines you would need to check if "Certificate Services" is a System State plugin object. To workaround this temporarily you could uncheck the box next to "Certificate Services" as a System State object in the list of objects, and/or continue to perform your System State backups to a Legacy backup device type (the "Legacy Local drive device" type or the "Legacy Network Device" type).
Hyper-V plugin backup on the Windows Server 2012 R2 OS will currently fail, if the target is a non-legacy backup device, for the two "Local Backup" and "Cloud Backup" device types, the backup job will end in failure immediately (no HV VMs will backup). Hyper-V backup and restore on the Server 2012 R2 OS, which reached end of life by Microsoft in October 2023, will only work if the target backup device is a legacy backup device, either a Legacy Local drive device type or a Legacy Network Device type, as the backup job target. The ability to perform Hyper-V backup or restores on a Server 2012 R2 OS to non-legacy device types has been removed in 21.x; only Server 2016 OS and up to Server 2022 are supported for Hyper-V backups and restores for the non-legacy backup device targets in 21.x (due to the advancements with Changed Block Tracking (RCT) that was first introduced in Hyper-V 2016). If you have the need for Hyper-V on a Server 2012 OS then you will be required to utilize a legacy device type as the target backup device.
File backups of long paths that are 259 characters or greater (which are either locally selected local drive folders as the source, or are UNC based network selected folders as the source) are not able to backup, and those long path file objects will be skipped and in some cases the stats will not indicate that those long file paths were skipped in the user facing *.summary.xml backup log file. Note: For backups to the non-legacy device types, it will indicate which folders were not able to process and mention the long path name in the produced backup log file, but if invididual files were selected in the backup job (not folder paths that were selected) then it won't process those files, and it won't mention those files anywhere in the log, and those individually selected files won't be counted in the log stats.
In most cases SQL plugin backup to Local Storage and Cloud Backup device types can no longer utilize the "Local System" user to gain permissions to the SQL Server instance to perform backup. In that case it will only be able to run as the user that you have defined in the "Run As" settings of the backup job, so whether you set the Run As tab inside the backup job settings, or if the job is scheduled then based on the "Scheduler" defined backup job "Run As" settings in the schedule entry for that backup job. If it is in fact scheduled, that user that is defined at the backup job level only for the two non-Legacy device types in 21.0.x will be the user that requires both "public" and "sysadmin" role enabled for that same user defined in that SQL Server instance in question.
When Importing a backup, which already has an entry on the Restore tab from a different location, the software is unable to replace the existing entry, but indicates the Import operation was successful.
To Import a backup that was moved, delete the reference to the entry on the Restore tab that was originally written to a different location before performing the Import operation.
Creating Image Boot Media using the "Simple" mode requires the presence of Windows installation files on the system. The software will detect if these Windows installation files are not in place and tell you if they are not. If these files are missing, use the "Advanced" mode to create the Image Boot Media.
Removed the ability to backup to a single tape drive device type. You can utilize the older NovaBACKUP 20.0.x versions for that, as a workaround. The backup device may be visible in the device targets listing and restore index will still visibly display and list that device type, but it likely won't be able to work for backup, especially if the backup job needs to span multiple tapes. You may still be able to restore the backups however, as long as the existing backups on that device type do not span multiple tapes. We can no longer support backup or restores from the single tape device type in NovaBACKUP 21.x, at both the application level and the technical support level.
Removed x86/32-bit OS support; the version 21.x backup client can no longer be installed on a x86/32-bit OS, such as Windows 10 x86/32-bit OS. Image Backup and the new backup engine are no longer compatible with x86/32-bit is the reason for that. If you need that ability you can continue to run an older version of NovaBACKUP client, and for that we would recommend 20.1.1118.1.

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NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. The NovaBACKUP Support team is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported as of October 10, 2023.
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2,
- Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (all editions),
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011 as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
  - See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page or Product End of Support page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Applications are no longer supported as of April 11, 2023.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2013,
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
NovaBACKUP 21.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to support you on the above OS's or applications. And the same is true for x86 32-bit OS's, as the ability to install on x86 32-bit OS's has been removed in 21.0.x.

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21.0.319

Release Date: 21MAR2024

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Included the total number of agents and Cloud storage accounts each user is able to manage when retrieving and exporting a list of users in both the API and UI
Included the total amount of storage space used for each user when retrieving and exporting a list of users in both the API and UI
Including the total number of agents running on a Microsoft Windows Workstation and Server Operating Systems each user is able to manage when retrieving and exporting a list of users in both the API and UI
Updated the API for managing groups to improve, and in some cases add, support for queries from the UI
Saving the Management Server URL specified in the setup installer to the database, and also updating it from the Management Server Administration desktop application.
Updated Group details page to allow downloading, customizing, and managing backup client setup installers
Updated the profile page to allow downloading the user’s customized backup client setup installer
Caching customized backup client setup installers to improve performance in subsequent downloads
Added support for managing software publisher certificates to digitally sign customized backup client setup installers using the API and UI

NovaBACKUP Client

Faster backup engine for local backups. The new backup engine for local backups works with local disk based storage devices (by local drive letter path) and network based storage devices (by UNC network folder path). You can read more about the new backup engine and how to take advantage of its features in the new NovaBACKUP 21 Quick Start Guide (.PDF) here: https://www.novabackup.com/qsg.
Incremental forever backup strategy for backup jobs.
Streamlined backup jobs to remove the need for multiple jobs for one backup requirement.
Rotational media enhancements.
Restore view for incremental forever jobs.
Simplified product names to “NovaBACKUP PC Agent” and “NovaBACKUP Server Agent”

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Fixed issue when modifying a backup job when unselecting a child item of a selected root item

NovaBACKUP Client

Rename "Generic S3 Storage Services" to "Cloud Backup" throughout the Client software when referring to Cloud (CLOUD) DATA MOVER device.
Rename "Local Device" to "Local Backup" throughout the Client software when referring to Local device.
Default all backup jobs (local and CLOUD) to have 30 days retention as a default setting in the software for new backup jobs
Make the Backup Settings options for the local devices look the same as the cloud devices.
Periodically sync/import indexes to ensure everything is correct.
Storage Usage and Pruning is not running on Cloud devices if you are over quota.
Retention speed optimization
Implement a way to do a Full Retention to clean up past backups with the new retention scheme.
If we cannot open the previous DCT file we should try to use the next previous DCT file.
Backup to Local device when the local device is a UNC path fails with data channel cannot be opened in some cases (dependent on if source and/or target are on a domain or not).
If engine.exe task is killed or crashes (or a reboot occurs) during a backup, an incomplete restore index entry will be created and if clicked on in restore index will lockup the client and nsService.exe will use 100% CPU
If engine.exe task is killed or crashes (or a reboot occurs) during a Local device backup (any job type), the Status tab, Logs tab, and Backup Log will display Successfully completed job status, instead of a Failed job status
Add the ability for users to import their Local Backup device data to be able to restore it.
Restores of large amounts of folders, files, and histories take a lot longer than they should.
Restoring Cloud and Local backups at the UNC root "node" name object, to original location, fails to restore anything, and the job ends in the Success status but shows no Selected Files, Completed Files, Skipped Files, and no Warnings in the log
Restore asks for encryption key and never restores any data even though the encryption key should be cached. Restore log error: “Could not proceed the backup due to internal error:?err*0x0000:4022*rng: key keyX was not found in the keyring”.
Restoring a file backup that contains UNC path objects to alt. must create a parent folder with the name of the UNC "node" object; and if there are multiple UNC "node" objects to restore create a separate parent folder per each "node" object
Restoring Cloud and Local backups that contain UNC paths, to orig. location, fails to restore anything, with warning: ">wrn*0x0000:007b*rec: unable to recover object //unc///ag-qnap/shared/test1/1.txt .. unable to create file \\?\\\unc\\ag-qnap\ .."
Remove the ability, by default, for new or upgrade installations, to be able to select a legacy device target for normal backup jobs
System State backup job create new or edit, if the "System State" object is selected at the top level of the Backup tab UI, causes the backup job when run to fail instantly.
If a single "Exclude or Include Wildcard" is utilized, will not process any of the open in use files in the selection; but removing the incl or excl filter allows the open files to backup
Remove any unnecessary and incompatible backup log summary items that do not apply to backups to those device types, such as "Backup type: Full", "Verify Mode: Normal", "Open File Backup", etc.
The *.summary.xml backup log for all but SQL plugin backup types to Cloud and Local devices cuts off the first 4 characters of the drive and folder path per each object in the expanded "File(s)" column details in a client backup log
nsexc.ini (default exclusions config file) should be made to work with Local and Cloud device backups, instead of how the exclusions are hard coded currently (not configurable, coming from engine.exe)
If the left [ bracket character is used anywhere in a folder or filename in the selection of a file backup job to a Cloud or Local device, it will cause backup to fail due to a flaw in engine.exe.
Make the Backup "Filters" tab settings work for Local device and Cloud device file backups
Make the Restore "Filters" tab settings work for Local device and Cloud device file restores
Backing up Hyper-V and SQL in a combo job to Cloud fails no matter what the method of selection is, on any language OS.
Remove the “To Time Mode” function at the top of the Restore tab View, in the backup client UI
Restore data from system state backed up to Local and Cloud devices to alternate location.
Backup Selected items for system state for Local and Cloud Devices.
Enable the ability to restore to UNC or local drive paths, that are protected target paths, by adding impersonation calling of engine.exe, otherwise the restore job will run engine.exe with no impersonation and may not have write access to the target.
Removed the ability to backup to a single tape drive device type. You can utilize the older NovaBACKUP 20.0.x versions for that, as a workaround. The backup device may be visible in the device targets listing and restore index will still visibly display and list that device type, but it likely won't be able to work for backup, especially if the backup job needs to span multiple tapes. You may still be able to restore the backups however, as long as the existing backups on that device type do not span multiple tapes. We can no longer support backup or restores from the single tape device type in NovaBACKUP 21.x, at both the application level and the technical support level.
Removed x86/32-bit OS support; the version 21.x backup client can no longer be installed on a x86/32-bit OS, such as Windows 10 x86/32-bit OS. Image Backup and the new backup engine are no longer compatible with x86/32-bit is the reason for that. If you need that ability you can continue to run an older version of NovaBACKUP like 20.1.1118.1, and for that we would recommend 20.1.1118.1..

Known Issues or limitations with this version

If an "xSP Cloud Storage" device exists (no matter if the 'ShowLegacyDevices' flag is enabled or not) starting in 21.0.319.1 that breaks the ability to expand the list of backups on that xSP Cloud device in the Restore tab dialog. Note: This issue was fixed in 21.0.410.1; it is recommended to upgrade to that version.
21.0.319.1 broke the Home tab > "Cloud Backup" function, and Device tab > "Click HERE to add .." function, the error is "Unable to get desired device type info to continue the signup process" (seen if "ShowLegacyDevices" flag is not enabled). Note: This issue was fixed in 21.0.410.1; it is recommended to upgrade to that version.
System State plugin + any other plugin backup method in the same single combined backup job will cause that backup job to fail immediately, if the target is a non-legacy backup device. The workaround would be to perform the System State backup in separate File + System State backup job or just a purely System State backup job to do this. Note: This issue was fixed in 21.0.410.1; it is recommended to upgrade to that version.
System State plugin backup of "Certificate Services", which will only exist as a System State object on a Domain Controller enabled Windows Server OS machine, will fail to backup and no log will be produced if that object is included in the System State backup to the newer non-Legacy Local Storage and Cloud Backup device types. This object does not exist on non-Domain Controller based Windows machines, so unless that is the case then System State backup should work fine for you. For Domain Controller machines you would need to check if "Certificate Services" is a System State plugin object. To workaround this temporarily you could uncheck the box next to "Certificate Services" as a System State object in the list of objects, and/or continue to perform your System State backups to a Legacy backup device type (the "Legacy Local drive device" type or the "Legacy Network Device" type).
Hyper-V plugin backup on the Windows Server 2012 R2 OS will currently fail, if the target is a non-legacy backup device, for the two "Local Backup" and "Cloud Backup" device types, the backup job will end in failure immediately (no HV VMs will backup). Hyper-V backup and restore on the Server 2012 R2 OS, which reached end of life by Microsoft in October 2023, will only work if the target backup device is a legacy backup device, either a Legacy Local drive device type or a Legacy Network Device type, as the backup job target. The ability to perform Hyper-V backup or restores on a Server 2012 R2 OS to non-legacy device types has been removed in 21.x; only Server 2016 OS and up to Server 2022 are supported for Hyper-V backups and restores for the non-legacy backup device targets in 21.x (due to the advancements with Changed Block Tracking (RCT) that was first introduced in Hyper-V 2016). If you have the need for Hyper-V on a Server 2012 OS then you will be required to utilize a legacy device type as the target backup device.
File backups of long paths that are 259 characters or greater (which are either locally selected local drive folders as the source, or are UNC based network selected folders as the source) are not able to backup, and those long path file objects will be skipped and in some cases the stats will not indicate that those long file paths were skipped in the user facing *.summary.xml backup log file. Note: For backups to the non-legacy device types, it will indicate which folders were not able to process and mention the long path name in the produced backup log file, but if invididual files were selected in the backup job (not folder paths that were selected) then it won't process those files, and it won't mention those files anywhere in the log, and those individually selected files won't be counted in the log stats.
In most cases SQL plugin backup to Local Storage and Cloud Backup device types can no longer utilize the "Local System" user to gain permissions to the SQL Server instance to perform backup. In that case it will only be able to run as the user that you have defined in the "Run As" settings of the backup job, so whether you set the Run As tab inside the backup job settings, or if the job is scheduled then based on the "Scheduler" defined backup job "Run As" settings in the schedule entry for that backup job. If it is in fact scheduled, that user that is defined at the backup job level only for the two non-Legacy device types in 21.0.x will be the user that requires both "public" and "sysadmin" role enabled for that same user defined in that SQL Server instance in question.
When Importing a backup, which already has an entry on the Restore tab from a different location, the software is unable to replace the existing entry, but indicates the Import operation was successful.
To Import a backup that was moved, delete the reference to the entry on the Restore tab that was originally written to a different location before performing the Import operation.
Creating Image Boot Media using the "Simple" mode requires the presence of Windows installation files on the system. The software will detect if these Windows installation files are not in place and tell you if they are not. If these files are missing, use the "Advanced" mode to create the Image Boot Media.
Removed the ability to backup to a single tape drive device type. You can utilize the older NovaBACKUP 20.0.x versions for that, as a workaround. The backup device may be visible in the device targets listing and restore index will still visibly display and list that device type, but it likely won't be able to work for backup, especially if the backup job needs to span multiple tapes. You may still be able to restore the backups however, as long as the existing backups on that device type do not span multiple tapes. We can no longer support backup or restores from the single tape device type in NovaBACKUP 21.x, at both the application level and the technical support level.
Removed x86/32-bit OS support; the version 21.x backup client can no longer be installed on a x86/32-bit OS, such as Windows 10 x86/32-bit OS. Image Backup and the new backup engine are no longer compatible with x86/32-bit is the reason for that. If you need that ability you can continue to run an older version of NovaBACKUP client, and for that we would recommend 20.1.1118.1.

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NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. The NovaBACKUP Support team is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported as of October 10, 2023.
- Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2,
- Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 (all editions),
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011 as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
  - See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page or Product End of Support page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Applications are no longer supported as of April 11, 2023.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2013,
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012,
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
NovaBACKUP 21.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to support you on the above OS's or applications. And the same is true for x86 32-bit OS's, as the ability to install on x86 32-bit OS's has been removed in 21.0.x.

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Version 20.1.x

20.1.1108

Release Date: 13NOV2023

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Added documentation for the HTTP response code 204 for the POST /api/Group endpoint
Updated page to create a group to support associating the group with backup client setup installers.
Automatically update associated managed Amazon S3 compatible devices when updating Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage accounts.
Automatically disable backups to managed Amazon S3 compatible devices when the associated backup client license has expired.
Added ability to set the parent group within its hierarchy when creating a group.
Improved input validation error messages when creating a group.
Improved error message when trying to create a role with the same name as one which already exists.
Increased the default data grid page sizes for the Agents and Groups and Cloud Storage Accounts pages from 10 to 25.
Added ability to get the details of a group using a dedicated API endpoint.
Added ability to export Users to a CSV or XLS file.

NovaBACKUP Client

Added filter options for backup jobs which target Amazon S3 compatible devices.
Removed irrelevant messages in backup job logs for backup jobs which target Amazon S3 compatible devices.

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Fixed an issue when sending a GET request to get a list of groups with expanded Users which may not return the expected response.
Fixed an issue when sending a POST request to create a group with notes which may not return the expected response.
Fixed issues on the Users page where the Role column was not being displayed correctly, and also could not be filtered.
Fixed issue which may prevent Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage accounts' used space from being calculated.
Fixed issue where the encryption key was not being validated correctly when updating an Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage account.
Fixed issue which may prevent disabling user registrations.

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed issue which may prevent pruning old backups for backup jobs which target Amazon S3 compatible devices.
Fixed issue where some files were included twice for backup jobs which target Amazon S3 compatible devices.
Fixed issue where the Amazon S3 compatible device names were not being displayed in backup job logs and email notifications, for backup jobs which target Amazon S3 compatible devices.

Known Issues

For customers that upgraded from for instance 19.x to 20.0.x, or from 20.0.x to 20.1.x in some cases you will not be able to get Scheduled Image Backup jobs to work unless you recreate them as new jobs in 20.1.x. This will be especially true for those customers that are imaging NVMe and M.2 drives, which could be SATA-based or PCIe-based. This is due to a fix we made in 20.1.x that solved the issue of not being able to even visually see certain NVME and M.2 drives in the selection list in the UI to be able to select one of those disks (which did affect many modern NVME hard drives).
When Importing a backup, which already has an entry on the Restore tab from a different location, the software is unable to replace the existing entry, but indicates the Import operation was successful.
To Import a backup that was moved, delete the reference to the entry on the Restore tab that was originally written to a different location before performing the Import operation.
Creating Image Boot Media using the "Simple" mode requires the presence of Windows installation files on the system. The software will detect if these Windows installation files are not in place and tell you if they are not. If these files are missing, use the "Advanced" mode to create the Image Boot Media.
Starting in version 20.1.808 and continuing in 20.1.1108 if you utilize Image Backup (Scheduled or Manual One-Time Image Backup) to image any machine to VHD or VHDX backup types other than Full VHDx backup types (Incremental or Differential VHDx backup types are affected), then the size of the Differential or Incremental VHDx backup will be equal to a Full VHDx image. We are working on a fix for that.
Starting in version 20.1.808 and continuing in 20.1.1108 if you utilize Image Backup (Scheduled or Manual One-Time Image Backup) to image a machine (a BIOS or UEFI Windows OS based machine) with VHD or VHDX backup types, and you try to boot the VM that you associated that produced VHDx file to, you probably will not be able to get the VM to boot up. We are working on a fix for that bug and it will be in the next release version, after 20.1.913. This is due to the OS partition in the VHDx file not having a drive letter assigned to it. To workaround this bug for now you will need to associate a drive letter to the OS partition on that machine by booting to the same version Windows installation .iso media or otherwise WinPE based recovery environment, such as the NovaBACKUP DR boot media, that you create, using either the Simple or Advanced method, and then associate either of those mentioned .iso files to the CD/DVD drive of that Hyper-V VM and set the boot order to boot to the CD/DVD drive instead of the Hard Disk, and then utilize DISKPART to assign the drive letter to the OS partition; you may also need to repair the boot records after that by reading the KB articles we have on that subject (which do not include the instructions on how to assign a drive letter to a partition using DISKPART, for help on that go here): https://support.novabackup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006722074-Repair-unable-to-boot-VM-after-a-successful-P2V-with-NovaBACKUP-if-the-VM-is-Windows-7-and-above-Workstation-OS- and https://support.novabackup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006792113-Repair-unable-to-boot-VM-after-a-successful-P2V-with-NovaBACKUP-if-the-VM-is-Windows-Server-2008-and-above-Server-OS-.

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20.1.913

Release Date: 18SEP2023

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Updated the Cloud Storage Accounts page to display the quota for Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage accounts associated with a backup client license key
Added support for managing associations between Groups and Backup Client Setup Installers
Added support for expanding navigation properties when retrieving a list of Groups
Periodically retrieving the quota associated with a backup client license key associated with Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage accounts so Amazon S3 compatible devices are automatically updated during device synchronization with agents

NovaBACKUP Client

Added option to skip existing, same, or newer files during a restore operation for S3 compatible device backup jobs
Improved the DR (Image) recovery environment, now the recovery environment UI contains the Firefox web browser shortcut on the desktop to utilize if you want while booted to the DR (Image) recovery environment, which could be used to look up help documentation about the interface that you are in, or to look up general troubleshooting items in our Knowledge Base (https://support.novastor.com/hc) or otherwise browse the web during a long image restore process. The one requirement would be that the machine would need internet access of course.

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Fixed error which may occur when viewing the details of an agent
Fixed error which may occur when trying to update a user’s email address
Fixed error which may occur when creating a new group
Fixed screenshots in help documentation
Fixed an issue which may cause the setup installer to require the KB2919442 Windows Update to be installed on Windows Server 2012 R2 (Updated version from January 1, 2015) even when it's not actually required, because the KB2919355 Cumulative Windows Update is already installed.

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed an issue when deleting an S3 compatible device that it did not delete all of the local configuration.
Fixed an issue when recovering files from S3 compatible devices that it always overwrote files instead of using the options in the restore settings that were specified.
Fixed an issue which may prevent pruning data from S3 compatible backup jobs in certain cases.
Fixed an issue which may cause a failure when checking credentials for S3 compatible devices.
Fixed an issue which may prevent the “Elapsed Time” from being reported correctly during S3 compatible backup and restore operations.
Fixed an issue which may cause image backups to fail when doing a manual image backup; the error if running 20.1.808.1 would have been seen as "Invalid volume size, size should be within the storage limit 1".
Fixed an issue which may prevent allowing the user to enter the destination’s network credentials for image backups when doing a manual image backup.
Fixed an issue which may cause the setup installer to require the KB2919442 Windows Update to be installed on Windows Server 2012 R2 (Updated version from January 1, 2015) even when it's not actually required, because the KB2919355 Cumulative Windows Update is already installed.
Fixed two minor spelling mistakes that were only seen after booting to the DR (Image) recovery environment.

NovaBACKUP Storage Server

Fixed an issue which may cause the setup installer to require the KB2919442 Windows Update to be installed on Windows Server 2012 R2 (Updated version from January 1, 2015) even when it's not actually required, because the KB2919355 Cumulative Windows Update is already installed.

Known Issues

When Importing a backup, which already has an entry on the Restore tab from a different location, the software is unable to replace the existing entry, but indicates the Import operation was successful.
To Import a backup that was moved, delete the reference to the entry on the Restore tab that was originally written to a different location before performing the Import operation.
Creating Image Boot Media using the "Simple" mode requires the presence of Windows installation files on the system. The software will detect if these Windows installation files are not in place and tell you if they are not. If these files are missing, use the "Advanced" mode to create the Image Boot Media.
Starting in version 20.1.808 and continuing in 20.1.1108 if you utilize Image Backup (Scheduled or Manual One-Time Image Backup) to image any machine to VHD or VHDX backup types other than Full VHDx backup types (Incremental or Differential VHDx backup types are affected), then the size of the Differential or Incremental VHDx backup will be equal to a Full VHDx image. We are working on a fix for that. Note: This works correctly in 20.1.1118.
Starting in version 20.1.808 and continuing in 20.1.913 if you utilize Image Backup (Scheduled or Manual One-Time Image Backup) to image a machine (a BIOS or UEFI Windows OS based machine) with VHD or VHDX backup types, and you try to boot the VM that you associated that produced VHDx file to, you probably will not be able to get the VM to boot up. We are working on a fix for that bug and it will be in the next release version, after 20.1.913. This is due to the OS partition in the VHDx file not having a drive letter assigned to it. To workaround this bug for now you will need to associate a drive letter to the OS partition on that machine by booting to the same version Windows installation .iso media or otherwise WinPE based recovery environment, such as the NovaBACKUP DR boot media, that you create, using either the Simple or Advanced method, and then associate either of those mentioned .iso files to the CD/DVD drive of that Hyper-V VM and set the boot order to boot to the CD/DVD drive instead of the Hard Disk, and then utilize DISKPART to assign the drive letter to the OS partition; you may also need to repair the boot records after that by reading the KB articles we have on that subject (which do not include the instructions on how to assign a drive letter to a partition using DISKPART, for help on that go here): https://support.novabackup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006722074-Repair-unable-to-boot-VM-after-a-successful-P2V-with-NovaBACKUP-if-the-VM-is-Windows-7-and-above-Workstation-OS- and https://support.novabackup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006792113-Repair-unable-to-boot-VM-after-a-successful-P2V-with-NovaBACKUP-if-the-VM-is-Windows-Server-2008-and-above-Server-OS-.

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20.1.808

Release Date: 10AUG2023

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Improved database validation to prevent data inconsistency
Added ability to set the S3 compatible storage server when creating and updating an S3
compatible cloud storage account
Added ability to change the default role for new user registrations
Added input validation to enforce creating only unique cloud storage accounts
Prevent deleting the last user account which can edit storage servers
Improved consistency of errors when updating roles using the API
Added ability to limit access to storage servers for specific roles
Added ability to list all cloud storage accounts associated with a specific S3 compatible
storage server
Added used storage space when listing storage servers
Added support for managing the quota for S3 compatible cloud storage accounts and
devices
Added ability to scan and re-calculate cloud storage accounts' used storage space
Added ability to export cloud storage accounts usage for a specific S3 compatible storage
server
Added support for displaying and reporting backup client agents' operating system version information on new operating systems
Added support for optionally deleting the data associated with an S3 compatible cloud
storage when deleting the S3 compatible cloud storage account
Added support for optionally deleting the data associated with an compatible storage server when deleting the S3 compatible storage server
Added support for managing a backup client agent service using an external web browser
Set the backup client agent service’s default startup mode to Automatic (Delayed Start) to
allow managing the backup client agent service from an external web browser
Disabled the ability to change S3 compatible cloud storage account user names to prevent inconsistency when calculating used storage space
Added support for encrypted backups to S3-compatible devices was added.
Added support for backup and restore of Hyper-V virtual machines to and from S3-compatible devices.
Added support for backup and restore of SQL databases to and from S3-compatible devices.
Added support for backup and restore of data from a UNC path to and from S3-compatible devices.
Completely new workflow for scheduling Image backups which simplifies job creation and retention of image files.
Added incremental and differential options when doing an image to a VHD(x) file.
Improved S3 compatible cloud storage accounts and devices to support user names up to 40 characters
Improved group names to support group names up to 64 characters
Added ability to manage (upload, download, customize, and delete) backup client setup
installers
Improved performance, memory management, and communication with agents
Masking the encryption key when creating and updating the S3 compatible cloud
Added quota status and percentage values when querying for S3 compatible cloud storage
account information

NovaBACKUP Client

Improved job names during restore
Improved job status file statistics during a backup
Added ability to specify and enforce quotas for S3 compatible devices
Added ability to stop and resume a backup job, with the ability to restore partial backups for S3 compatible backups.
Added ability to disable backups to an S3 compatible device
Replaced embedded Internet Explorer engine with Edge in order to display “In the news” task panel item on the “Home” tab
Replaced embedded Internet Explorer engine with Edge in order to display job logs
Improved cloud storage devices to support user names up to 40 characters
Improved job logs
Improved image backup and restore
Displaying the amount of free space for S3 compatible devices in the Device tab of the
backup client desktop application
Improved performance of the backup client agent service when sending job logs to CMon
Added support for Windows 11 Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) when creating an
advanced image backup boot media
Added button and updated links to download the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) when creating an image backup boot media (https://novabackup.com/bootmedia)

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Fixed issue where the LastModified field is not updated when a user or role are updated using the API
Fixed issue where the password attempt counts are not reset when unlocking user accounts using the API
Fixed issue where a user could be locked out when updating the user’s details using the API
Fixed issue which unexpectedly enables the Delete button after updating an S3 compatible storage server which cannot be deleted
Fixed issue where cloud storage account types are listed when creating a new cloud storage account when a storage server which supports those cloud storage account types doesn’t exist
Fixed issue where an unexpected storage server type is listed when creating a new storage server
Fixed issue with inconsistent errors when trying to delete a storage server using the API
Fixed issue preventing parameter requirements from appearing in the OpenAPI specification document
Fixed issues with some API calls which use a string as the identifier
Fixed issue when testing the connection to a NovaBACKUP cloud device

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed issue which may prevent recovering data from large backup sets sent to an S3 compatible device
Fixed issue which may cause Hyper-V backups to fail when backing up to an S3 compatible device
Fixed issue when modifying a job where some fields should not be editable in the UI
Fixed issue which may cause backups to fail if there are no SQL Server instances installed on the machine
Fixed issue which may cause drives to not display correctly when creating a scheduled image backup job
Fixed issue which may cause an import to report inaccurate results.
Fixed issues which may cause files with special characters to be excluded from backups
Fixed issue which may prevent the ability to view backup job logs in CMon
Fixed issue which caused the Windows 11 Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) version 22H2 + Win PE addon for the ADK version 22H2 (released May 2023) could not be detected as an installed ADK by the Advanced boot media creation dialog, when attempting to create image backup advanced boot media
Fixed issue which caused job failure if the encryption + verification options were enabled together for Scheduled Image Backup jobs; now you can utilize both of those options together, where in 20.0.x the job would fail if those two options were enabled
Fixed issue which caused some models of NVME or M.2 hard drives in the Scheduled Image Backup selection dialog not to be visible and not able to be selected to image. Special note regarding this fix: For customers that upgraded from 19.x or 20.0.x to 20.1.x, in some cases you will not be able to get Scheduled Image Backup jobs to work unless you recreate them as new jobs in 20.1.x. This will be especially true for those customers that are imaging NVMe and M.2 drives, which could be SATA-based or PCIe-based. This is due to the fix that solved the issue of not being able to even visually see certain NVME and M.2 drives in the selection list in the UI to be able to select one of those disks (which did affect many modern NVME hard drives)

Removed Features / New Requirements

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Removed support for Windows 8.1
Removed dependencies for Internet Explorer (which reduces issues with other browsers)

NovaBACKUP Client

Removed the default CMon server address www.mydomain.com to prevent the backup client agent from trying to connect to it automatically
The support tab was removed in favor of the Help > On The Web > Technical Support menu item
The embedded browser window which appears when the user clicks on "Cloud Backup" on
the "Home" tab, or "Click HERE to add an online device" on the "Device" tab which was used to create managed cloud devices was removed in favor of using the user’s default web browser
Removed "Ask a question" search bar from the task panel on the “Home” tab in favor of the Help > On The Web > Technical Support menu item
Removed support for Windows 8.1
Removed dependencies for Internet Explorer (which reduces issues with other browsers)

Known Issues

- When Importing a backup, which already has an entry on the Restore tab from a different location, the software is unable to replace the existing entry, but indicates the Import operation was successful.
- To Import a backup that was moved, delete the reference to the entry on the Restore tab that was originally written to a different location before performing the Import operation.
- Creating Image Boot Media using the "Simple" mode requires the presence of Windows installation files on the system. The software will detect if these Windows installation files are not in place and tell you if they are not. If these files are missing, use the "Advanced" mode to create the Image Boot Media.
- Starting in version 20.1.808 and continuing in 20.1.1108 if you utilize Image Backup (Scheduled or Manual One-Time Image Backup) to image any machine to VHD or VHDX backup types other than Full VHDx backup types (Incremental or Differential VHDx backup types are affected), then the size of the Differential or Incremental VHDx backup will be equal to a Full VHDx image. We are working on a fix for that. Note: This works correctly in 20.1.1118.
- Starting in version 20.1.808 and continuing in 20.1.913 if you utilize Image Backup (Scheduled or Manual One-Time Image Backup) to image a machine (a BIOS or UEFI Windows OS based machine) with VHD or VHDX backup types, and you try to boot the VM that you associated that produced VHDx file to, you probably will not be able to get the VM to boot up. We are working on a fix for that bug and it will be in the next release version, after 20.1.913. This is due to the OS partition in the VHDx file not having a drive letter assigned to it. To workaround this bug for now you will need to associate a drive letter to the OS partition on that machine by booting to the same version Windows installation .iso media or otherwise WinPE based recovery environment, such as the NovaBACKUP DR boot media, that you create, using either the Simple or Advanced method, and then associate either of those mentioned .iso files to the CD/DVD drive of that Hyper-V VM and set the boot order to boot to the CD/DVD drive instead of the Hard Disk, and then utilize DISKPART to assign the drive letter to the OS partition; you may also need to repair the boot records after that by reading the KB articles we have on that subject (which do not include the instructions on how to assign a drive letter to a partition using DISKPART, for help on that go here): https://support.novabackup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006722074-Repair-unable-to-boot-VM-after-a-successful-P2V-with-NovaBACKUP-if-the-VM-is-Windows-7-and-above-Workstation-OS- and https://support.novabackup.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006792113-Repair-unable-to-boot-VM-after-a-successful-P2V-with-NovaBACKUP-if-the-VM-is-Windows-Server-2008-and-above-Server-OS-.

NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. NovaBACKUP Support is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported by Microsoft as of January 14. 2020.
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008,
- Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
- See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Programs are no longer supported as of October 13, 2020.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (all editions)
NovaBACKUP 20.1.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to assist in that case.

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Version 20.0.x

20.0.1118

Release Date: 20NOV2022

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Added permission to indicating a role can reset user passwords.
Added additional security checks on API endpoints.
Added ability to limit user access to specific Amazon S3 compatible storage servers.

NovaBACKUP Client

Added support for encrypted backups to S3-compatible devices was added.
Added support for backup and restore of Hyper-V virtual machines to and from S3-compatible devices.
Added support for backup and restore of SQL databases to and from S3-compatible devices.
Added support for backup and restore of data from a UNC path to and from S3-compatible devices.
Completely new workflow for scheduling Image backups which simplifies job creation and retention of image files.
Added incremental and differential options when doing an image to a VHD(x) file.

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Fixed IE11 compatability when displaying cloud storage accounts in the data grid in the embedded web browser in the backup client desktop application.
Fixed issue where the 'Completed files (size)' stat seen in the logs, viewed in the CMon, were not accurate for S3-compatible device backups and restores.
Fixed issues where backups and restores to an S3-compatible device were not reporting the 'Current Speed' stat in the active running job that is viewed when a backup or restore job was running, and fixed the "effective throughput" message stat in S3-compatible device backup and restore logs (Messages section), viewed in the CMon, not being displayed at all for certain backup types. All current S3-compatible device backup types (File, MS SQL, and Hyper-V) should now display those items properly in the backup and restore logs that are produced.

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed issue with the Restore index and being able to list and restore backups to local devices produced by v19.8 and prior versions, if the 19.8 and prior client were upgraded to 20.0.1011.1 those local backup indexed entries were not even listed in that case.
Fixed issue when restoring multiple Microsoft SQL Server database backups. This was mainly affecting multi-instance Microsoft SQL Server installs.
Fixed issue enabling encryption for Scheduled Image Backup jobs, either when creating the scheduled job or when editing an existing scheduled job.
Fixed issues importing and restoring backups from S3-compatible device.
Fixed issue when restoring a Hyper-V VM backup on a S3-compatible device to original location nsservice crashes with an exception.
Fixed issue where the 'Completed files (size)' stat seen in the logs, viewed in the backup client, were not accurate for S3-compatible device backups and restores.
Fixed issues where backups and restores to an S3-compatible device were not reporting the 'Current Speed' stat in the Status tab when a backup or restore job was running, and fixed the "effective throughput" message stat in S3-compatible device backup and restore logs (Messages section), viewed in the backup client, not being displayed at all for certain backup types. All current S3-compatible device backup types (File, MS SQL, and Hyper-V) should now display those items properly in the backup and restore logs that are produced.
Fixed the 6 minute delay at the start when backing up Microsoft SQL Server databases to an S3-compatible device.
Log a warning message when an unsupported backup source object (currently that includes the System State, MS Exchange, and VMware plugins), is selected in a backup job's selection properties with an S3-compatible device as the backup destination/target.

Removed Features / New Requirements

General

Removed support (and the registration link in the Help menu of the backup client) for the NovaBACKUP Granular Restore (NBGR) for granular restore of Microsoft Exchange single mailboxes and Microsoft SQL Server. You can still feel free to utilize the version that you already have downloaded and installed prior with your licensed version of NovaBACKUP, but we will no longer provide support for the NovaBACKUP Granular Restore (NBGR) application.
Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 SBS SP2, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server SBS 2011, and Windows 8.0 are no longer supported. Microsoft had ended support for Windows 8.0 since Jan. 12, 2016, and Windows Server 2008 since Jan. 14, 2020. Microsoft had ended support for Windows 7, Server 2008 SBS SP2, 2008 R2, and SBS 2011 since Jan 14, 2020. The setup installers have not yet been updated to prevent installation on those unsupported operating systems. The help documentation have not yet been updated with the new system requirements.
The setup installers have been updated with .NET Framework 4.7.2 as a prerequisite and is automatically installed.

NovaBACKUP Central Management

“Microsoft ASP.NET Core 3.1.10 - Windows Hosting Bundle” was added as a prerequisite for the NovaBACKUP Central Management (CMon) web application and can be automatically installed as part of the CMon setup installer. CMon no longer supports Windows Server 2012. .NET Core 3.1 isn’t supported on Windows Server 2012, even though Microsoft’s extended support for that operating system doesn’t end until Oct. 10, 2023. The setup installer has not yet been updated to prevent installation on Windows Server 2012. The help documentation has not yet been updated with the new system requirements. Windows Server 2012 R2 is still supported.
NovaBACKUP Central Management (CMon) no longer supports the “Stand-alone web server” and “SQLite” database provider. The setup installer has not yet been updated to prevent selecting the SQLite and stand-alone web server option. The help documentation has not yet been updated to remove the deprecated options.

Known Issues

When Importing a backup, which already has an entry on the Restore tab from a different location, the software is unable to replace the existing entry, but indicates the Import operation was successful.
- To Import a backup that was moved, delete the reference to the entry on the Restore tab that was originally written to a different location before performing the Import operation
Creating Image Boot Media using the "Simple" mode requires the presence of Windows installation files on the system. The software will detect if these Windows installation files are not in place and tell you if they are not. If these files are missing, use the "Advanced" mode to create the Image Boot Media.
Mounting Image Backups greater than 2TB crashes the system (BSOD) when running on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2.

NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. NovaBACKUP Support is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported by Microsoft as ofJanuary 14. 2020.
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008,
- Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
- See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Programs are no longer supported as of October 13, 2020.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (all editions)
NovaBACKUP 20.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to assist in that case.

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20.0.1011

Release Date: 12OCT2022

New Features

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Updated database schema to support more file backup job settings and improved data integrity.
Added support for S3-compatible devices.
Added support for file backup jobs with S3-compatible devices as the destination device.
Added support for S3-compatible destinations as a Storage Server for cloud backups.
Added support for S3-compatible Cloud Storage Accounts.
Additional API calls were implemented along with examples of calls.
Updated to the latest UI framework and .NET hosting bundle.

NovaBACKUP Client

Added support for encrypted backups to S3-compatible devices was added.
Added support for backup and restore of Hyper-V virtual machines to and from S3-compatible devices.
Added support for backup and restore of SQL databases to and from S3-compatible devices.
Added support for backup and restore of data from a UNC path to and from S3-compatible devices.
Completely new workflow for scheduling Image backups which simplifies job creation and retention of image files.
Added incremental and differential options when doing an image to a VHD(x) file.

Fixed Issues

NovaBACKUP Central Management

Fixed issues when filtering rows using the Modified column in the file selection grid in the connected agent’s file backup job view.
Fixed input validation errors related to the selected target destination device when creating, viewing, and updating a file backup job.
Fixed one-time schedule’s “Start time” popup window on smaller screen resolutions.
Fixed issue which may cause an error when modifying the custom email server file backup job’s settings.
Fixed issue preventing installation if the selected IIS website is not listening on port 80.
Fixed typos in the file backup job’s setting dialog related to email notifications.
Fixed typos in the connected agent job file selection’s Type column filter menu.
Fixed issue causing errors on certain pages if a cookie on the same website domain name contains non-ASCII characters.
Fixed issues when selecting dates and times when the user’s time zone is different from the server’s time zone.
Fixed tooltips displaying “null” in the destination field when creating a file backup job.
Fixed input validation error messages for date and time fields so they display a more detailed input validation error.
Fixed issue preventing users from entering a decimal value in the file backup job filter setting’s Size fields.
Fixed error when viewing a virtual machine file-level backup log.
Fixed the order in which messages are displayed when viewing job logs.
Fixed issue when trying to filter jobs by their type.
Fixed issue when viewing the selected items of a connected agent’s file backup job.

NovaBACKUP Client

Fixed issue preventing connections to Amazon S3 servers in specific regions.
Fixed issue which may prevent restoring a Hyper-V virtual machine from a cloud storage device.
Fixed issue preventing backups to hang if the job name contains special characters.
Fixed issue preventing S3-compatible devices from reporting their total used space to Central Management.
Fixed issue preventing connections to Amazon S3-compatible servers running on a port other than 443.
Fixed issues when creating differential image backups restoring image backups.
Fixed issues backing up to S3-compatible storage locations that only support HTTPS.

Removed Features / New Requirements

General

Removed support (and the registration link in the Help menu of the backup client) for the NovaBACKUP Granular Restore (NBGR) for granular restore of Microsoft Exchange single mailboxes and Microsoft SQL Server. You can still feel free to utilize the version that you already have downloaded and installed prior with your licensed version of NovaBACKUP, but we will no longer provide support for the NovaBACKUP Granular Restore (NBGR) application.
Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 SBS SP2, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server SBS 2011, and Windows 8.0 are no longer supported. Microsoft had ended support for Windows 8.0 since Jan. 12, 2016, and Windows Server 2008 since Jan. 14, 2020. Microsoft had ended support for Windows 7, Server 2008 SBS SP2, 2008 R2, and SBS 2011 since Jan 14, 2020. The setup installers have not yet been updated to prevent installation on those unsupported operating systems. The help documentation have not yet been updated with the new system requirements.
The setup installers have been updated with .NET Framework 4.7.2 as a prerequisite and is automatically installed.

NovaBACKUP Central Management

“Microsoft ASP.NET Core 3.1.10 - Windows Hosting Bundle” was added as a prerequisite for the NovaBACKUP Central Management (CMon) web application and can be automatically installed as part of the CMon setup installer. CMon no longer supports Windows Server 2012. .NET Core 3.1 isn’t supported on Windows Server 2012, even though Microsoft’s extended support for that operating system doesn’t end until Oct. 10, 2023. The setup installer has not yet been updated to prevent installation on Windows Server 2012. The help documentation has not yet been updated with the new system requirements. Windows Server 2012 R2 is still supported.
NovaBACKUP Central Management (CMon) no longer supports the “Stand-alone web server” and “SQLite” database provider. The setup installer has not yet been updated to prevent selecting the SQLite and stand-alone web server option. The help documentation has not yet been updated to remove the deprecated options.

Known Issues

When Importing a backup, which already has an entry on the Restore tab from a different location, the software is unable to replace the existing entry, but indicates the Import operation was successful.
- To Import a backup that was moved, delete the reference to the entry on the Restore tab that was originally written to a different location before performing the Import operation
Creating Image Boot Media using the "Simple" mode requires the presence of Windows installation files on the system. The software will detect if these Windows installation files are not in place and tell you if they are not. If these files are missing, use the "Advanced" mode to create the Image Boot Media.
Mounting Image Backups greater than 2TB crashes the system (BSOD) when running on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 R2.

NOTES:

Please see Microsoft Products Ending Support in the Microsoft Docs system. NovaBACKUP Support is only able to provide assistance for products that are still supported by Microsoft.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Operating Systems are no longer supported by Microsoft as of January 14. 2020.
- Windows 7 (all editions),
- Windows Server 2008,
- Windows Server 2008 R2,
- Windows Small Business Server 2011as this is built on Windows Server 2008 R2
- See the Microsoft Product Lifecycle page for more information.
As Per Microsoft’s Support Policy, the following Programs are no longer supported as of October 13, 2020.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (all editions)
NovaBACKUP 20.0.x cannot be installed on any of the above OS's, and Technical Support will not be able to assist in that case.

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Unsupported NovaBACKUP Version / Changelog Archive

You can see the archived changelog here: Unsupported NovaBACKUP Version / Changelog Archive

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Other Notes

Note: Some versions of our products may not be able to install on older OS's, so if we provide you the download link for a previous version and you choose to attempt to install or run it on an unsupported OS then Technical Support will be limited. If you install or run any NovaBACKUP product on a currently unsupported OS (see notes about this in the Current Version / Changelog article), then Technical Support will be limited. Installing our products may not be possible on an OS that Microsoft has ended support for. See the Microsoft Product End of Support page for more information. The NovaBACKUP Support team cannot assist you with installing any of our products on an unsupported OS; and some functionality may be limited in that case if for instance there is a bug fix to resolve an issue that requires upgrading to a newer version of our products, and due to your installed unsupported OS that is not feasible to do.

Partner builds and xSP / OEM versions of NovaBACKUP will be one minor version higher than listed above but are the same technical versions (e.g. - Version 16.5.1216 is the partner version of NovaBACKUP 16.5.1215). For Partner-Specific downloads of NovaBACKUP, please be sure to sign up as a NovaStor ValueCreate! Partner and you can find the downloads at your Partner Portal.

Current NovaBACKUP Version / Changelog