Vembu BDR Backup for Hyper-V fails with Error While Executing powershell Queries

Overview

Vembu BDR backup for Hyper-V may have problems after VMWare PowerCLI is installed

You will get a failure which is described in the article: https://www.vembu.com/support/knowledge-base/question/104056/error-while-executing-powershell-queries/ however all the methods in Vembu's KB won't assist as this error can happen right after VMWare PowerCLI is installed on the Hyper-V host.

PowerCLI is required on Hyper-V when trying to run a nested ESXi host within, as described by many articles including: https://www.vembu.com/blog/installing-esxi-6-0-in-a-hyper-v-virtual-machine/

Removing and re-deploying the Hyper-V Backup Agent will not help at all as it isn't an issue with the agent. Newly created jobs will still fail with the same error.

Solution

The solution is to remove PowerCLI and also remove or move out the following folders under C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules on the Hyper-V host.

This can be achieved in the following steps:

1. Open Powershell on the host (or remote in via Enter-PSSession) and run the command Remove-Module -Name VmWare.PowerCLI
2. Move the above folders out of C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules.
3. Run the backup again. You will now find the backup runs normally.