Windows 10 20H2 Sysprep Error

[philellis]

Hi all,

 

Im currently pulling my hair out with Windows 10 20H2 education edition.

 

I have upgraded our current 1909 image to 20h2 however when trying to pull the image (in a VM) i get the task sequence error code 0x80070005.

 

Everywhere online points to it being an issue with thw built in microsoft apps, however i cant seem to figure ou which ones.

 

I have tried running get -appxpackage and remove-appxpackage to try and strip the OS of some of its built in apps but to no avail.

 

I cant seem to find anything of any meaning from the smsts logs either.

 

I was wodering if anyone on here has had similar issues or could take a look at my attached smsts log file and be so kind and help me out?

 

For context, this image used to sysprep fine when it was running 1909.

 

Thanks for ny help, i appreciate it in advance.

 

Thanks,

Phil

LOG FILE.txt

[Driftingforlife]

Have you disabled internet access on that vm before removing any of the apps?

[philellis]

Hi mate,

 

internet access is disabled with only access to local network.

 

Cheers for the reply

[ColonelPanic]

Not sure if it's relevant, but I've had ours failing the sysprep stage since 20H2

 

If you have a look at the C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Panther\setuperr.txt file, it might shed some light on it.

 

I've had to stop one of the running services, but I can't remember which one it was. Related to AppX deployment

[Driftingforlife]

Have you tried to run sysprep by it self so you can get the sysprep log file?

 

I had to remove a language experience from our 1909 images every time.

 

Get-AppxPackage –Name *LanguageExperience* | Remove-AppxPackage

[Michael]

Unless I'm missing something, you can't officially Sysprep an upgraded version of Windows 10. It'd have to be a new 20H2 install, then it'd work fine.

 

Even if you bodged the registry, would you really want to do this on a reference image?

[philellis]

I've just tried installing windows 10 20H2 fresh from ISO and get the same error on sysprep. im going to take a look at the other suggestions on here. Thanks for the feedback though its much appreciated! does anyone remove all built in apps before pulling the image? I remember that to sysprep pre 20H2 i had to leave the built in apps installed and remove them within the task sequence when imaging a networked device.

 

Cheers,

Phil

[ColonelPanic]

I do use a powershell script to remove some of the annoying appx packages.

 

It's the State Deployment service that I have to turn off to get it to capture with SCCM.

[Michael]

If you're having issues Sysprepping a clean 20H2 install, try Sysprepping a clean 2004 install.

 

20H2 is just 2004 with a modest sized patch.

[Guest Guest]

I had issues with this, turns out after I was installing windows, apps were being updated through the Microsoft store.

 

I kept the VM disconnected from the network until i disabled updates in the store settings, after that the sysprep worked fine

[philellis]

I had issues with this, turns out after I was installing windows, apps were being updated through the Microsoft store.

 

I kept the VM disconnected from the network until i disabled updates in the store settings, after that the sysprep worked fine

 

How can you keep it completely disconnected from the network and still image the VM via a task sequence?

[Guest Guest]

I didnt, I rebuilt the image from scratch

[philellis]

Thanks for all the replies on this one. Theyre greatly appreciated.

 

I've now narrowed the issue down to theInputApp_1000.18362.449.0_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy application.

 

I'm unable to remove this in the same way that i removed the other app causing issue.

 

I have been using remove-appxpackage *APPNAME* but this doesn't work for the inputapp.

 

I read online that you need to set the 'isinbox' criteria from 1 to 0 and this will allow the removal of the app but this also hasnt worked.

 

I was wondering if anyone else has had similar issue and has managed to find a workaround other than the ones ive tried?

 

The Sysoreo error is:

SYSPRP Failed to remove staged package InputApp_1000.18362.449.0_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy: 0x80070002.[gle=0x00000002]

 

The error when trying to remove the app is:

Remove-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CFA)

 

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

 

Cheers,

Phil

[BOOT]

Don't use Remove-AppxPackage.

If you must remove an app, use Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage instead.

[philellis]

Thanks for youre reply.

 

I've tried this way also but with no joy. when using that command line i get the error:

 

Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument'InputApp_1000.18362.449.0_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy'.

 

It feels like this app is unremovable however i need it uninstalled in order to sysprep.

 

Thanks again,

Phil

[techy32]

Our image is also failing on sysprep on windows 10 20H2 fresh from ISO. Any solution?

[ozydave]

Gave up sysprep. Just could not get it to work. Seemed to be the language pack.

[techy32]

How are you imaging now?

[ozydave]

How are you imaging now?

I just extracted the wim file, used dism to remove the rubbish and put that into the task sequence.

Previously used fat images to deploy win 10 because of Adobe CS6. It was just easier and quicker.

So now CS6 is deployed after setup, just takes longer but works

[3s-gtech]

Haha CS6 takes an absolute age in our task sequence - probably as long as the OS and other apps combined [emoji28] Edited March 28, 2021 by 3s-gtech

[techy32]

Haha CS6 takes an absolute age in our task sequence - probably as long as the OS and other apps combined [emoji28]

CS6 was never in our image...it takes ages to install via SCCM..

[mullet_man]

I use to create an image with CS6 backed in because it took so long too, but am starting to not include it now and only deploy Photoshop and Acrobat as no uses any of the other packages and it uses up a lot of space on smaller SSD/M2 drives.

[3s-gtech]

Photoshop, Fireworks and Dreamweaver all get used here. Acrobat isn’t in the deployment. Embarrassingly, I may have still got Flash in there [emoji23]

[philellis]

Hi,

 

I finally got to the bottom of my sysprep issues.

 

A handy file to look at when sysprep is failing is C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\Panther. This helped me a lot to identify the specific apps that were causing sysprep to fail.

 

I also found out that certain built in apps dont allow removal using 'run get-appxpackage -allusers *insertapphere* | remove-appxpackage'

 

This is because the 'isinbox' criteria is set to 1 and requires this to be set to 0.

 

I found this tool online that allows you to access the database and changes criteria for the apps that are being a pain to remove which i have attached to this post.

 

Sorry if this is no further help to anyone, its just what i found that helped our specific Windows estate.

 

Thanks

Phil

AppxDBEditor-master.zip

[techy32]

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the info. Are you able to sysprep the image successfully?