[WDS] Errors on Install of Image ..

[soveryapt]

Howdo all

Right, pushing out my lovely install image with Office in and all that jazz and it works on most machines, however, I get the odd one that is not playing ball.

I get the following error message (image also attached):

Install Windows

Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize]. The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied. The error was detected while processing settings for component [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup].

Now, my specialize pass that it refers to looks like this:

<settings pass="specialize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <ComputerName>*</ComputerName>
            <RegisteredOrganization>Broadfield Specialist School</RegisteredOrganization>
            <RegisteredOwner>Broadfield Specialist School ICT Dept.</RegisteredOwner>
            <ShowWindowsLive>false</ShowWindowsLive>
            <ProductKey>*****-*****-*****-*****-*****</ProductKey>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-UnattendedJoin" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <Identification>
                <JoinDomain>Broadfield.School</JoinDomain>
                <UnsecureJoin>true</UnsecureJoin>
            </Identification>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-IE-InternetExplorer" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <CompanyName>Broadfield Specialist School</CompanyName>
            <DisableAccelerators>true</DisableAccelerators>
            <Home_Page>www.broadfield.lancs.sch.uk</Home_Page>
            <ShowMenuBar>true</ShowMenuBar>
            <SuggestedSitesEnabled>false</SuggestedSitesEnabled>
        </component>
    </settings>

Any suggestions? I seem to remember reading somewhere that some machines didn't like you configuring the Ownername and things there and that is should be set to the Microsoft Defaults and then put in the rest of the data later on?

Can someone please help?

Ta
Andy

[soveryapt]

Just changed it to have the default things in place (Microsoft and AutoBVT) so just redeploying it to my test machines to see what happens, but if there's anything else that is glaring out that people have noticed, please do let me know .. it's my first go using WDS and though I'm doing fairly well, I'm sure there are a few things I've overlooked ..

[soveryapt]

Just changed it to have the default things in place (Microsoft and AutoBVT) so just redeploying it to my test machines to see what happens, but if there's anything else that is glaring out that people have noticed, please do let me know .. it's my first go using WDS and though I'm doing fairly well, I'm sure there are a few things I've overlooked ..

Well that didn't seem to work .. HELP!

[soveryapt]

Ok, just drilled down the unattended file and found that it hadn't updated properly in WDS so I've just reupdated it (actually removed and re added it) and things seem to be going smoother. It's installed on a fresh machine and it's just running on the problematic machines too so fingers crossed ..

[soveryapt]

Right then .. ok .. it would appear that just 2 machines are not complying .. they've obviously picked up something they don't like, and appear to not be changing settings, despite the fact when I try to redeploy, the redeployment formats the harddisk .. any suggestions on what I can try?

Thanks
Andy )

[soveryapt]

ARGH .. Still getting this .. don't suppose any one has any suggestions do they?

[soveryapt]

Right, sorted that. There were a few machines in AD that hadn't added properly, and funnily enough, they related to the machines that didn't want to play ball. Whoop!

[SCSI]

I have been having the same problem like you over the past two weeks. The machines that were giving me the problems were HP dc7900. Most complete successfully and few fails the that error.

Updating the BIOS and resetting the CMOS worked on a few machines. We endedup taking the hard drives of the failing machines and imaged them on working machines, run it till it gets to the desktop and then put the hard drive back to failed machine.

Still don't know what is causing the issue.

[soveryapt]

Look in your AD under the OU where the machines join.

Now, my current naming principle is SCHOOL-MACHINETYPE-NUMBER (so BSS-WS-001 etc). What I found is that the machines that were failing were named twice in the AD. Once as BSS-WS-001 and then a second entry as BSS-WS-001.RANDOM-STRING-OF-CHARACTERS (which looked like the GUID of the machines).

I deleted both of these entries for those machines, reinstalled the machines and they worked perfectly. Don't know if you have the same entries in your AD, but might be worth a check.

Still don't know why those few machines failed when identical machines worked, but that's how I managed to get them to work again without all the who-ha of stripping out Hard Drives, Imaging on another machine, etc etc.