Windows client requirements for Windows instant recovery

See the following for information about requirements for WIR clients:

     Supported Windows operating systems and applications

     Firmware interface type and disk and volume configuration

Supported Windows operating systems and applications

The following Windows operating systems and applications are supported for instant recovery:

Item

Description

Client Operating Systems

     Windows XP, 32-bit and 64-bit (SP2 and later) *

     Windows Vista, 32-bit and 64-bit (SP2)

     Windows 7, 32-bit and 64-bit

     Windows 8, 32-bit and 64-bit**

     Windows 8.1, 32-bit and 64-bit**

* Note: For 32-bit Windows XP clients, the VFC must reside on a Recovery-Series appliance or a Hyper-V server. It cannot reside on an ESX server.

**Note: A VFC running Windows 8 or higher cannot reside on Hyper-V server 2008 R2.

Server Operating Systems

     Windows 2003, 32-bit and 64-bit (SP2)

     Windows 2003 R2, 32-bit and 64-bit

     Windows Small Business Server 2003 and later, 32-bit and 64-bit

     Windows 2008, 32-bit and 64-bit

     Windows 2008 R2

     Windows 2012, 64-bit, all versions***

     Windows 2012 R2, 64-bit***

***Note: A VFC running Windows Server 2012 or higher cannot reside on Hyper-V server 2008 R2.

Applications

     SQL Server 2005, 2008, and 2012

     Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010, and 2013.

Windows Instant Recovery is not supported for Windows Cluster Server, and Hyper-V, Oracle, and SharePoint applications. You can use WIR to protect the Windows servers hosting these applications, but the feature will not protect the applications.

Firmware interface type and disk and volume configuration

For every operating system mentioned above, the following firmware interface, disk, and volume configurations are supported:

Item

Considerations

Firmware interface type

BIOS- and UEFI-based clients are supported. The following requirements must be met to create a VFC for a UEFI-based client:

     Unitrends system and agent versions are 7.4 or higher.

     The VFC location is an ESX server running ESXi version 5.0 or higher or a Hyper-V server version 2012 R2. For a VFC running on a Hyper-V server, the original UEFI-based client’s operating system must be 64-bit and Windows 8 or higher. A VFC for a UEFI-based client cannot run on a Recovery-Series appliance.

Disk configuration

WIR is supported on Windows machines configured with basic disks as well as dynamic disks, as long as the boot and system disks are not dynamic.

Dynamic volumes configured as data volumes are supported for the following types:

     RAID 5

     Spanned

     Striped

     Mirrored

     Simple


Note about Windows 8.1 and Windows 2012 R2
: The data from all disks for Windows 8.1 and Windows 2012 R2 is protected by WIR, but a maximum of four disks are accessible when booting.

Disk partition type

Master Boot Record (MBR) partition types are supported. GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks are supported with the following limitations:

     Only the data volumes can be GPT. The boot and system volumes cannot be GPT.

     A VFC for clients with GPT disks can run only on an external hypervisor. It cannot run on a Recovery-Series appliance.

Number of volumes

A client protected by WIR can have a maximum of 20 volumes, including the System Reserved volume and other unmounted volumes. A VFC created for a client with more than 20 volumes might not boot.

Separate boot and system partitions

For clients with boot and system partitions located on different disks, the system partition must be located on the first disk (Disk 0).

File System Configuration

The following file systems are supported for WIR:

     NTFS

     FAT/FAT32

     ReFS (Windows 2012 and later)

Active Directory

An Active Directory database (NTDS) located on the boot volume is supported. (If it is not located on the boot volume, the configuration is not supported and you see an error message when you add the VFC.)