SCOM: SecureStorageBackup.exe password failed from command line

A short (simple/funny) blog about using SecureStorageBackup.exe from the command line.

Tonight i was doing a (lab) restore for a SCOM 2007 R2 environment. After the initial install for that management group i made a backup of the encryption key with SecureStorageBackup.exe. Then, as a well raised IT-guy, i used a strong password with some great non-standard characters.

The restore process...

After restoring my OperationsManager database, i had to restore the encryption key using SecureStorageBackup.exe.

There a 2 modes for using SecureStorageBackup.exe.

1. GUI, just start the executable from Windows Explorer. A wizard will take you through the steps required.
2. Command Line, open command prompt and run the executable from there. Use the syntax:
• SecureStorageBackup.exe Backup|Restore

I'm a fan of using the command line, so i did just that. But my password wasn't working. First i thought i had the wrong password. But then i remembered that using the command prompt some special characters do NOT work for passwords, like the dollar ($) sign.

So don't give up right away when you're trying to restore your encryption key and it fails. It might be something rather stupid as using special unsupported character in your encryption key password. Just use the GUI mode. click click....