Attempt to create a system image fails

I am new to Windows 10. I just tried, for the first time, to use the legacy "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" to create a system image on an external hard drive. The creation failed with an error:

The backup failed. A Volume Shadow Copy Service operation failed. Please check "VSS" and "SPP" application event logs for more information (0x807800A1). Additional information: The writer experienced a transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error may not reoccur (0x800423F3).

As suggested, I retried, but the operation failed again.

I used the Event viewer to check the SPP and VSS events:

SPP: Writer ASR Writer experienced some error during snapshot creation.

VSS: Volume Shadow Copy Service error: An invalid XML document was returned from writer {89374701-e2cf-4855-bd6e-6992c14fc30f}.

VSS: Fail to parse XML file. Reason An invalid character was found in text content.

There was an old (Windows 7) system image on the hard drive. In case Windows 10 was having trouble reading it, I deleted it. But I the operation still failed.

Please use free versions of third party software to make backup images:
Acronis, Aoemi, EaseUS, Macrium, Paragon, etc.

Macrium is widely used in Ten Forums:
Macrium Software | Your Image is Everything
Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

zbook said:

Please use free versions of third party software to make backup images:
Acronis, Aoemi, EaseUS, Macrium, Paragon, etc.

Macrium is widely used in Ten Forums:
Macrium Software | Your Image is Everything
Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

Thanks. I'm reading the Macrium tutorial now. But I'd still like to know why the operation is failing.

There was a notice about the depreciation of the Microsoft service.

See this link:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ll-creators-up

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...d-ecc387656194

zbook said:

There was a notice about the depreciation of the Microsoft service.

See this link:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ll-creators-up

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...d-ecc387656194

I assumed it was deprecated based on how hard it was to find. Thanks for the links!

bro67 said:

Because Microsoft is going a different route in how system backups are done. The link I posted works fast and can make the image on a network share, USB drive or second internal drive for backups.

What advantages does a tool like Macrium have over the Powershell method of creating a system image?

Macrium has free and pay versions depending on the features needed.
Macrium also has a boot rescue feature.