kennysarmy Posted March 25, 2011 Posted March 25, 2011 Where I am with our win7 testing and deployment: 1. Win7 policies written and test PC locked down and desktop redirected etc. 2. Test PC installed with all app and tested and those broke - fixed! 3. Following this technet artice to create an image: Building a Standard Image of Windows 7: Step-by-Step Guide I get as far as the part titled : "Generalize the Image" Sysprep begins to run then BAM : A fatal error occurred while trying to Sysprep the machine" A bit of searching found this article by MS: An error message occurs when you run "Sysprep /generalize" in Windows Vista or Windows 7: "A fatal error occurred while trying to Sysprep the machine" It lists the cause of my error as: "This error may occur if the Windows Software Licensing Rearm program has run more than three times in a single Windows image" I am confused....has it run more than 3 times? Did I run it without knowing it? Does the PC run this itself and indeed over the course of the 3 days it's taken me to build the PC it's run in the background? It lists the solution to my problem as: To resolve this issue, you must rebuild the Windows image What does this mean? Surely it does nt mean start again and re-install win7 from scratch and all our apps again? It does say there is a workaround which is: To work around this issue, use the setting in an XML answer file (Unattend.xml) to skip the Rearm process when you build the Windows image. It then goes on to say: You must make sure that the setting is removed from the final unattended file that is used to deploy computers in a production environment. If is not removed from the unattended file that is used to deploy computers in a production environment, the KMS current client count does not increase for new clients that are added to the network. What does that mean? This is the final unattended XML that I am using is nt it? It's going to be captured by the imagex.exe process - or is there some way to edit the unattend.xml with the Rearm part - run sysprep - capture the image - and then replace the unattend.xml file with one with the rearm part taken out. Any suggestions?
kennysarmy Posted March 25, 2011 Author Posted March 25, 2011 (edited) This is a copy of my unattend.xml en-US 0409:00000409 en-US en-US en-US true Our School OUR KEY Never true Work 2 true true GMT Standard Time password true password true initial user school user Administrators;Users; school en-gb en-gb en-gb en-gb false School School 32 1024 60 768 Edited March 25, 2011 by kennysarmy
sukh Posted March 25, 2011 Posted March 25, 2011 Hi Are you use VL key for Windows 7? Have you tested the xml file again? Modify the xml file using WSIM. Are you still having the issue? Sukh
kennysarmy Posted March 25, 2011 Author Posted March 25, 2011 Thanks for your reply. I am not entering a key when I install w7 - as I am using KMS to activate Yes I did have the foresight to take a ghost image prior to trying the syspre and I have tried again and got the same result. I did successfully create a win7 DVD with sp1 and ie9 which was done without using an answer file. My test build was installed from this DVD then I added all my apps. When I open WSIM and click to create a new answer file it says I should base this on an existing image - I am choosing the one from my DVD - I might try creating a new unattend.xml this way.
sukh Posted March 25, 2011 Posted March 25, 2011 Hi When you capture the image, I generally only use Windows tool where I can. Then you should create the unattend in WSIM using this image. Can you try to create a image and as you said, use this image to create the answer file and don't use the SkipRearm in the pass. Test and let me know how it goes. Sukh
kennysarmy Posted March 25, 2011 Author Posted March 25, 2011 Fatal error again: this is the new unattend.xml en-gb Never true school true Work 2 true true bAA0ADIANAA0ADcAMgA4AEEAZABtAGkAbgBpAHMAdAByAGEAdABvAHIAUABhAHMAcwB3AG8AcgBkAA== false school school false GMT Standard Time
Paid_Peanuts Posted March 25, 2011 Posted March 25, 2011 (edited) How many times have you sysprep'd this image? Did you know you can only sysprep win7 3 times?! then it is game over and there is no work around! We got this message and racked our brains for ages until we found out the behaviour of sysprep. We build an image then ghost it. then we sysprep it, then if we have to revisit the image to ammend we ghost back to box then update - ghost back then sysprep again so the sysprep count always looks like its on '1'. Edited March 25, 2011 by Paid_Peanuts
cromertech Posted March 25, 2011 Posted March 25, 2011 I've found this page How to Reset Available Remaining Rearm Count in Windows 7 » My Digital Life And this section is what you need The said WPA vulnerability is related to a WPA registry key which contains Last Rearm Time information in Windows 7. When the WPA registry key is deleted, the whole licensing status of Windows 7 is re-initiated to the Initial Grace Period (more on Windows 7 and Visa license status), as if Windows 7 is just installed in OOBE (out of the box experience). The deletion of the WPA registry key is achievable with the following command: reg load HKLM\MY_SYSTEM “%~dp0Windows\System32\config\system” reg delete HKLM\MY_SYSTEM\WPA /f reg unload HKLM\MY_SYSTEM With the importance of WPA registry key, it’s understandable the Microsoft locks the key and all its sub-keys from been changed, modified, removed or deleted in normal user session. So users have to run the command manually from WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment) or WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment).
kennysarmy Posted March 25, 2011 Author Posted March 25, 2011 What I did was : Install win7 from our original DVD media, then did all the MS updates and a few reg tweaks then sysprepped, created an image file using imagex and followed some instructions to merge the wim file in to our original media and created a bootable iso -which successfully installs windows 7. I used this DVD to install windows 7 again and then I installed all of our apps and tested it all. I've now come to create a new wim file and a bootable USB stick so we can roll this image out.... Have I bust it by using the DVD I've created which was from a sysprepped image I'm really struggling to understand what the re-arm thing is and why this is so complicated.....
kennysarmy Posted March 25, 2011 Author Posted March 25, 2011 I've found this page How to Reset Available Remaining Rearm Count in Windows 7 » My Digital Life And this section is what you need Thanks. Followed the procedures there to reset the rearm count to 5. Going to try again... But first will create another fall-back ghost image - un sysprepped of course...
kennysarmy Posted March 25, 2011 Author Posted March 25, 2011 bummer..... Created my wim file from imagex.exe PC rebooted and now I cannot login as the "administrator" account is disabled. Have added this in to my unattend.xml password123 true initial user school admin user Administrators;Users; school
sukh Posted March 25, 2011 Posted March 25, 2011 Hi It is disabled be default. Please see. Enable and Disable the Built-in Administrator Account Sukh
ChrisMiles Posted March 25, 2011 Posted March 25, 2011 You can add a command to your xml file to enable the administrator account during sysprep. Add a synchronous command to your specialze sction using the app or paste in: 1 net user administrator /active:yes 1
kennysarmy Posted March 25, 2011 Author Posted March 25, 2011 Nice one Chris.. I'm getting there with all this.....
ChrisMiles Posted March 25, 2011 Posted March 25, 2011 Also, your hitting this 3 activation limit because your install is not activating on your kms server which prevents this issue. Windows is complaining because your circumventing the grace period by syspreping repeatedly. Add this section to you oobeSystem pass section to force windows to activate on your KMS server during sysprep. Note the key is for win 7 enterprise, if your using another version get the keys here: Access Windows 7 KMS Client Setup Keys - Softpedia 1 false cscript //b c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ipk 33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH 2 cscript //b c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ato false
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