Before You Begin – Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide for Microsoft Hyper-V

Before you add a Microsoft Hyper-V server to the backup infrastructure, check the following prerequisites:

• Check permissions required to add the server. For more information, see Permissions.
  • Admin permissions based account got it…
• [For SCVMM] SCVMM Admin UI must be installed on the backup server. Otherwise, you will not be able to add SCVMM servers to the backup infrastructure.
  
• SCVMM console version must match the management server version.
• Make sure that you do not add to the backup infrastructure Hyper-V hosts or clusters managed by an SCVMM server if this SCVMM server is already added to the backup infrastructure.
  • Nope just a stand alone host

• File and printer sharing must be enabled in network connection settings of the added Microsoft Hyper-V host. Otherwise, Veeam Backup & Replication will fail to deploy required components.
  • Uhhh wut?

• Make sure that the NETBIOS name of the Microsoft Hyper-V Server is successfully resolved.
  • Uhhh wut?

• If you get the “Invalid Credentials” error when adding a Hyper-V host using a local account, see this Veeam KB article.

This is gonna suck..

Unable to add a single Hyper-V host to Veeam. : r/Veeam

i am unable to add Hyper V hosts to Veeam | Veeam Community Resource Hub

Why?…

When you add a Hyper‑V host to Veeam Backup & Replication, the product deploys its transport service and integration components remotely using Windows’ built‑in administrative shares (ADMIN$, C$). That’s why File and Printer Sharing must be enabled on the NIC: without those hidden shares, Veeam cannot copy files or install its agents. By default, only the built‑in Administrator or domain admin accounts can access these shares remotely, because User Account Control (UAC) strips remote admin rights from other local accounts. This often surprises people who harden their hosts by disabling the Administrator account or removing shares, since Veeam’s deployment model depends on them being present.

On standalone Hyper‑V hosts, this creates a security trade‑off. You can either leave the built‑in Administrator enabled (simpler, but harder to audit), or disable UAC remote restrictions so named local admin accounts can access the shares (more auditable, but technically weaker security posture because all local admins gain remote rights). In practice, many administrators prefer creating a dedicated service account for Veeam and a separate account for human administration, then disabling the built‑in Administrator. This way, activity is traceable and controlled, while still allowing Veeam to function. The nuance is that Veeam chose the “lowest common denominator” approach — SMB admin shares — which works everywhere but clashes with modern hardening practices, so standalone hosts require careful balancing of convenience, auditability, and exposure.

Step 1) Enable SMB

Install-WindowsFeature -Name FS-FileServer -IncludeManagementTools

Edit your firewall rules as required as this will create 3 new ones and open them up (135 DCOM, 445 SMB, and dynmic ports one), in my case I disabled them and only enabled the SMB restrictive rule.

Check off Microsoft file and print sharing service under the NIC settings for which will be used to add Hyper-V to Veeam.

Maybe we can enable it only during deployment then disable it, lets find out. On Hyper-V lets create a dedicated Veeam admin account, then disable remote UAC while adding the host to Veeam. Done, adding host to Veeam…

Option 1) Specify the local administrator account. (Usually disabled on hardened servers)

OR

Option 2) edit registry to allow remote uac, so the built in admin shares can be accessible by admin account that is named and not the built in administrator account.

Why Veeam does allow for the ability to prepare a Hyper-V host via these install packages manually without exposing the post to these additional attack surfaces is honestly beyond me. I usually love Veeam but this one is kind of dumb.

Step 2) Disable Remote UAC restrictions

I’ll stick with option 2: User Account Control and remote restrictions – Windows Server | Microsoft Learn

To disable UAC remote restrictions, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

3. If the LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy registry entry doesn’t exist, follow these steps:
   1. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then select DWORD Value.
   2. Type LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy, and then press ENTER.
4. Right-click LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy, and then select Modify.
5. In the Value data box, type 1, and then select OK.
6. Exit Registry Editor.

Now open a file explorer window in Veeam Server, and point to \\IPofHyper-V\admin$ it should prompt you for creds, you should be able to provide the creds of the named admin account and it should connect.

Well I got past the error…

Sigh n’ groan…. ughhhh.. too be continued, time to make a Server 2025 image…

Lets try again..

And this time success…

Restore Storage Theory

🖥️ Scenario

• Source: Veeam is running inside a VM on ESXi.
• Repository: Local storage attached to that VM (so Veeam sees it as a local NTFS/ReFS volume).
• Target: A standalone Hyper‑V host with only local storage (no SMB shares, no clustered SOFS).

🔧 How Veeam Writes the VM HDD Files

1. Restore job starts
   • You pick the Hyper‑V host as the restore target.
   • Veeam knows it must deliver VHDX files + VM configuration to that host’s storage path (e.g., D:\VMs\MyVM\).
2. Transport service on Hyper‑V host
   • Veeam deploys or uses its Veeam Data Mover Service (part of the Veeam transport service) on the Hyper‑V host.
   • This service is responsible for receiving blocks of data and writing them to disk.
3. Data transfer
   • The Veeam server (on ESXi) reads blocks from the backup file in its local repository.
   • Those blocks are sent over the network to the Hyper‑V host using Veeam’s own transport protocol (TCP/IP).
   • Important: This is not SMB — it’s Veeam’s proprietary data mover channel.
4. File creation on Hyper‑V host
   • The transport service on the Hyper‑V host opens a file handle on the local filesystem (NTFS/ReFS).
   • It creates the target VHDX file and writes the incoming blocks directly using standard Windows file I/O APIs (CreateFile, WriteFile, etc.).
   • VM configuration files (.vmcx, .vmrs) are also written directly to the host’s local storage.
5. Completion
   • Once all blocks are written, Hyper‑V sees the restored VM files in its local storage.
   • Veeam registers the VM with Hyper‑V Manager if you chose a full VM restore.

✅ Key Points

• No SMB is used here.
• Veeam uses its own transport service to push data over TCP/IP to the Hyper‑V host, which then writes the files directly to local disk.
• SMB only comes into play if the repository or Hyper‑V storage is on a remote file server (like a NAS or SOFS cluster).

Retore to Hyper-V

Here a whole video on the process, cause I wasn’t sure how to do it as when I selected restore entire VM to new location, only my ESXi hosts were selected, AI said it not possible, Googling said that Instant Restore was the only option… mhmm that video showed the same thing…

I won’t lie I felt so dumb at first cause the restore prompt said “waiting on user input” and there was an open console link at the bottom of the instant restore wizard, so I clicked that and it kept asking for creds (I thought the hyper-v ones) and it kept failing… till I realized you just have the VM already running (or not based on your selection) but it’s already registered to the host, you have to finish an instant restore by clicking migrate to production option.

I tell ya… that made me feel really…. reallllly dumb…..

anyway I hope this posts helps someone.