Client is running a pretty basic SQL Server Express(v14.0.2014.14) instance on well-equipped Win2016 Std VM w/12 cores 16g RAM, fully patched / updated. The installation is part of a custom vertical point-of-sale application for private country clubs, and everything is operating just fine.
The only exception is the typically SQL Express Server backup scripts that are included as part this commercial program. While I can manually backup the SQL server database, the engineers for the software vendors are unable to determine why their standard, scheduled backup routines are failing.
According the the support techs, they are make use of theexpressmaint utility. The is tool is called in the same way and with the same nature of arguments as other installs, but it fails with a peculiar error in our basic, vanilla environment: