Is there a way to see a list of the files included in an image backup? I am trying to figure out what files it is leaving out.
rkshack
Mount the vhd, use the DIR command & redirect the output to a text file, you’ll need to be careful with the command line arguments to DIR so that hidden & system stuff gets included.
Compare to the output running DIR over the actual drive with something like WinDiff.
Then spend lots of time accounting for files which appeared or disappeared legitimately between the moment you ran the backup & the time you ran DIR over the drive …
Or more sensibly, inspect the registry on the client, see what exclusions are listed at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore\FilesNotToSnapshot
That will tell you what files VSS is leaving out.
Interestingly Macrium Reflect uses it’s own registry key to manage VSS exclusions, so they can use custom exclusions without changing the behaviour of the built-in Windows backup.