Volume Shadow Copy Service component encountered error 0x80042302

System Restore allows PC users to restore the OS image to an earlier functioning state. The Restore operation is very easy and doesn’t involve technicalities. However, in some cases, you may receive the error code 0x80042302 when you try to perform a system restore on your Windows 10 device.

Volume Shadow Copy Service component encountered an unexpected error 0x80042302

When you encounter this issue, you’ll receive the following full error message:

System Restore does not appear to be functioning correctly on this system.

A Volume Shadow Copy Service component encountered an unexpected error. Check the Application event log for more information. (0x80042302)

As you can see on the error prompt, the most common reason for the error is that the Volume Shadow Copy service is disabled.

In addition, system files missing or corrupted can also trigger this error during the restore operation

Fix System Restore error 0x80042302

If you’re faced with this issue, you can try our recommended solutions in the order presented below and see if that helps to resolve the issue.

Enable Volume Shadow Copy service
Clean Boot and perform System Restore
Run SFC and DISM scan
Perform Reset This PC or Cloud Reset.

Let’s take a look at the description of the process involved concerning each of the listed solutions.

1] Enable Volume Shadow Copy service

To enable the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on Windows 10, do the following:

Press Windows key + R to invoke the Run dialog.
In the Run dialog box, type cmd and then press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER to open Command Prompt in admin/elevated mode.
In the command prompt window, type the command below and hit Enter after each line:

net stop vss

net start vss

After you execute both commands, you can then re-run System Restore. The operation should run successfully without the error 0x80042302. Otherwise, try the next solution.

2] Clean Boot and perform System Restore

This solution requires you to clean boot your system and then perform the system restore operation in that state.

3] Run SFC and DISM scan

If you have system file errors, you may encounter this error.

The SFC and DISM are both utilities in Windows 10 that allow PC users to scan for corruptions in Windows system files and system image itself, then restore corrupted files or rebuild the damaged system image. Download and use our FixWin to run both of them with a single click.

Read: The VSS service is shutting down due to idle timeout.