On systems with multiple boot partitions, install SPX on each of the supported bootable partitions. These installs guarantee that SPX recognizes changes to SPX-managed volumes in these environments. Only one of these installs requires activation, but the snapshot driver (stcvsm.sys) must be available in each Windows or Linux partition.
This snapshot driver manages the fast incremental tracking in SPX. If you boot to an alternate OS environment where the snapshot driver is not loaded, SPX cannot track volume updates from that OS boot session. This means that your next Incremental backup misses any changes made from the alternate OS.
If one or more non-Windows operating systems, such as Linux, can write to an SPX-managed volume, confirm that SPX recognizes those changes by creating a script:
- Create a script that executes during the startup/logon phase of the non-Windows OS.
- Configure it to delete all VSM000.IDX files (the name and extension are both case-sensitive) files from the root directory of each SPX-managed volume.
Removing these files forces SPX's snapshot driver to do a full differential backup when the primary Windows volume boots. This differential image file captures any changes made to the volume by the non-Windows OS.
Note: Since the multiple operating systems run independent of each other, it is possible to install both a Windows SPX and a Linux SPX in their respective environments. This would maintain separate backup chains for each, rather than only a full backup for the quiescent operating system.