How to restart VSS writers without rebooting

Question

Hello fellow teckies.
I'm having this problem when backing up with Symantec Backup Exec 11d where it generates errors about not being able to backup VSS sections on the C drive.
I've already posted with Symantec. 
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/vss-c-drive-errors-when-backing-server
They're saying to re-register and restart the services.  My question is, can the services be restarted without rebooting?
Unfortunately rebooting is not an option as this is a critical production server.
If anyone can answer, please let me know.
Thanks :)

Answer 1

What Santhosh mentioned is on the right direction. To restart a VSS writer, you need to restart the services or process that hosts the writer. Generally speaking, we will
take the following steps when encountering VSS writer related issues:
Retry the backup or restore operation that caused the error condition.
If this does not resolve the issue, restart the service or process that hosts the writer, and retry the operation.
If this does not resolve the issue, open Event Viewer as described in the "Open Event Viewer and view events related to VSS" section and look for events related to the
service or process that hosts the writer. If necessary, restart the service or process, and retry the operation.
If this does not resolve the issue, restart the computer, and retry the operation.
If restarting the computer does not resolve the issue, provide the Event Viewer information to the vendor whose application is indicated in the event text.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee264212(WS.10).aspx
As for the impact of the restart, it generally will not cause bad effect. However, it depends on the service which is restarted. Generally speaking, a service should handle
all the related task, such as writing all data in memory into disk and committing the transaction, etc, when a properly restart operation is performed. If there are any particular requirement or order to follow to restart a service or application, you should
follow the recommended restart procedure.
Meanwhile, it is reported that when performing Shadow Copy Components backups with the File Server Resource Manager (FSRM) installed you may encounter this issue. Please
refer to the following Symantec article:
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH48419
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Laura Zhang - MSFT