How to resolve : Cannot take a quiesced snapshot of Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine

When creating a snapshot on a Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine on ESXi/ESX 4.1 and later versions, you may experience these symptoms:

• The snapshot operation fails to complete.
• Unable to create a quiesced snapshot of the virtual machine.
• Unable to back up the virtual machine.
• Cloning a Windows 2008 R2 virtual machine fails.
• In the Application section of the Event Viewer in virtual machine, Windows guest operating system reports an VSS error similar to:

           Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine IOCTL_DISK_SET_SNAPSHOT_INFO(\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1) fails with winerror 1168. hr = 0x80070490, Element not found.

•  Any process that creates a quiesced snapshot fails.
•  You see the error:

    Can not create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine.

Backup applications, such as VMware Data Recovery, fails.You see the error:

• Failed to create snapshot for vmname, error -3960 (cannot quiesce virtual machine)
• This is a known issue with VSS application snapshots which is not caused by VMware software. It affects ESXi/ESX 4.1 and later versions.
• Currently, there is no resolution.
• To work around this issue, disable VSS quiesced application-based snapshots and revert to file system quiesced snapshots. You can disable VSS applications quiescing with either the VMware vSphere Client or with VMware Tools. Use one of these procedures:

 Disable VSS application quiescing using the vSphere Client:

•  Power off the virtual machine.
•  Log in to the vCenter Server or the ESXi/ESX host through the vSphere Client.
•  Right-click the virtual machine and click Edit settings.
•  Click the Options tab.
•  Navigate to Advanced > General > Configuration Parameters.
•  Add or modify the row disk.EnableUUID with the value FALSE.
•  Click OK to save.
•  Click OK to exit.
•  Reboot the virtual machine for changes to take in effect.

Note: If this change is done through the command line using a text editor, the vim-cmd command to reload the vmx is enough to see the changes. For more information
Alternatively, un-register the virtual machine from the vCenter Server inventory. To un-register, right-click the virtual machine and click Remove from Inventory.
        Re-register the virtual machine back to the inventory.

Disable VSS application quiescing using VMware Tools:

• Open the C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Tools\Tools.conf file in a text editor, such as Notepad. If the file does not exist, create it.
• Add these lines to the file

            [vmbackup]
            vss.disableAppQuiescing = true

• Save and close the file.
• Restart the VMware Tools Service for the changes to take effect.
• Click Start > Run, type services.msc, and click OK.
• Right-click the VMware Tools Service and click Restart.