How to remove backups created by Windows Server Backup

By | May 21, 2009

The other day I had a need to run a demo for a customer that involved showing backup and recovery of AD LDS using Windows Server Backup.  I decided to re-use an existing virtual machine and wanted to start afresh by clearing all existing backups.  Simple enough, I thought, and proceeded to re-format the dedicated backup disk (using diskmgmt.msc).

disks.JPG

When the format was finished I went into the Windows Server Backup UI (wbadmin.msc) and expected to see the jobs cleared.  Instead they appeared as they did before I re-formatted the backup disk.

catalog.JPG

I figured from this that the backup catalog information must be stored elsewhere.  I couldn’t find an option to clear the catalog information from within the UI, so I had a look at the command line (wbadmin.exe) help.  No luck there either.  Eventually, I found an additional Wbadmin delete catalog command in Windows Help and Support.  This had the desired effect of removing the list of backups from the UI (see below). 

messages.JPG 

The only problem now was that the Windows Server Backup UI still displayed messages relating to the previous backup (see screenshot above).  The source of these messages is the Backup event log, as shown in the screenshot below.  If you clear the event log the messages are removed from the Windows Server Backup UI. 

events.JPG

I was hoping for a one-click clear out but, as you can see, it takes a little more effort than that.

12 thoughts on “How to remove backups created by Windows Server Backup

  1. Lanny Lin

    Thank you very much! This information is very useful!! I’ve been scratching my head over this for a few weeks!

    Reply
  2. Lanny Lin

    Thank you very much! This information is very useful!! I’ve been scratching my head over this for a few weeks!

    Reply
  3. Colin

    Thanks for this. It solved something that was annoying me for a while.

    Reply
  4. Doug Shy

    I tried this and the messages were still in the window. Using 2008 R2…

    Reply
  5. adrian

    I followed your instructions, with 2008 R2 & it works a treat, thanks for the heads up.
    Adrian

    Reply
  6. Pingback: Removing all Traces of Previous Windows Backup Information | IP-Life.net

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