[fog] SysPrep & FOG Issues

[AngryITGuy]

I’m having a bit of a crisis with SysPrep and FOG and I was hoping someone could shed some light on where I’m going wrong.

 

We have always used FOG to image workstations and never used SysPrep before as we simply relied on the FogPrep script but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t work anymore.

 

Last year we had some issues activating Windows using our KMS server due to duplicate workstation SID. We managed to resolve the issue by using the MAK key instead and I wanted to fix the issue during the summer break as we update all the images during this time.

 

I have done all the necessary updates to an existing image and now I have an updated Windows 7 64bit image and it’s ready to be uploaded to FOG.

 

I have a basic answer file and I’ve ran C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /unattend:c:\unattend.xml /shutdown

 

The workstation does it’s thing regarding SysPrep and then shutsdown. I configured FOG to capture the image and power on the workstation and it PXE boots and FOG captures the image. After the image is captured the machine reboots and goes through the Windows setup process and the machine is ready to use after a while.

 

Looking good so far … I’ve then tried to deploy the captured image to other workstations and after deployment they reboot and go through the Windows setup stages and that’s when things start to unravel as the workstations all report the ‘Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation.’

 

Restarting doesn’t fix the issue and the machines are stuck in a loop. I thought it was because our FOG deployment is configured to join the domain so I have disabled that but that didn’t help matters.

 

School closed before I had a chance to check the SysPrep logs so that’s something I’ll be doing tomorrow.

 

I don’t think it’s the answer file as the host machine goes through the SysPrep process without any issues. I’m hoping I don’t need to create an image from scratch as I was thinking SysPrep was going to be a simple solution to the issue with duplicate SID.

 

But I am running out of ideas as to what the issue could be so I am hoping someone could point me in the right direction. Since the host machine goes through the SysPrep process fine after the image has been captured (I’ve done that twice) I’m thinking that the image capturing process with FOG could be the culprit as I am deploying the image to identical workstations.

[3s-gtech]

IME with similar issues, it was the answer file for me. I never sysprepped before running Windows 7 and it took a bit of trial and error to get there, but you do need it really. It is possible to reset the SID too but I only ever did that on XP and that was years back. Bit of a bodge.

 

Try simplifying your unattend.xml. I suspect you have a step in there that your workstations don't like.

[AngryITGuy]

IME with similar issues, it was the answer file for me. I never sysprepped before running Windows 7 and it took a bit of trial and error to get there, but you do need it really. It is possible to reset the SID too but I only ever did that on XP and that was years back. Bit of a bodge.

 

Try simplifying your unattend.xml. I suspect you have a step in there that your workstations don't like.

 

Suppose you have a point with regards to the need as it’s only to allow us to activate licenses via KMS which we can easily sidestep by using the MAK.

 

I was under the impression the only way to reset the SID was to SysPrep in Windows 7 as the NewSID utility no long works.

 

I’ll have another look at the xml file and see if anything flags up, to be fair it’s one I grabbed online and modified so I may just need to create a new one for testing.

[lmgtfy]

It will be something to do with the XML file Fog won't be the cause of this one. Start with just the stock XML file and see if that deploys okay and then work back.

 

Good luck :-)

[Zourous]

I also had similar problems some years back and it was to do with the answer file and the sysprep process in W7. At the time my only fix was to forget the answer file and just click through stuff manually after imaging if you can. Some time later I read it was a sysprep bug which you can get a fix for I believe, but you might want to google it as I can’t remember the details.

[Zourous]

http:// https://www.wintips.org/how-to-fix-windows-could-not-finish-configuring-the-system-error-after-running-sysprep/