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Hi everyone, I've just finished creating an image for a small set of office computers [Windows 7 Pro 64-bit]. The image is very clean, and my sysprep script has skiprearm to 1, and also has 2 scripts that run after the image is deployed. One script sets the product key, and the other script activates it. Anyway, this works great. I captured the image, restarted the reference computer [which would be one of the office computers], and made sure sysprep ran correctly, which it did. However, since sysprep ran correctly, the product key was applied and the machine was activated. Normally, this is great. But I then wanted to add Adobe Reader [cause I forgot to add it to the image like an idiot], and change one other thing with the wallpaper image. Great, did that. Cleaned up again, and ran sysprep using the same unattend.xml. Captured image. When I restarted this time, again, everything went according to plan. But I didn't see the two cscript windows appear the first time I logged in as administrator. I checked Computer Properties though, and it said Windows is Activated. I also checked the event viewer though, and I see one of these: "Installation of the Proof of Purchase failed. 0xC004F050". Only once, at the beginning. The machine seems to be running fine, I'm on it right now typing this. However, it hasn't been on for more than 45 minutes or so, and I've seen some weird things while Googling the above event that say the computer could randomly blue screen after 3 hours and that sort of thing. I just wanted to check with you guys, do you think I'm ok to push this image out to the other few office computers? Or is it safer to scrap it and start again with windows not activated? Or should I just reapply the product key and activate again? Everything seems to work beautifully, just want to be safe. Any thoughts greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

I have built my reference image ready to deploy to a bunch of new machines but when I am trying to sysprep I am getting the following error: Sysprep was not able to validate your Windows installation. Review the log file at %WINDIR%\System32\Sysprep\setupact.log for details. After resolving the issue, use Sysprep to validate your installation again. I have had a look through the log and there appear to be a couple of errors but I can't make any headway on them. Has anyone else run into this who could point me tin the right direction? Log file: 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ======================================================== 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP === Beginning of a new sysprep run === 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ======================================================== 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f004d] SYSPRP The time is now 2016-06-28 13:26:42 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f004e] SYSPRP Initialized SysPrep log at c:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Panther 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f0054] SYSPRP ValidateUser:User has required privileges to sysprep machine 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f007e] SYSPRP FCreateTagFile:Tag file c:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep_succeeded.tag does not already exist, no need to delete anything 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f005f] SYSPRP ParseCommands:Found supported command line option 'GENERALIZE' 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f005f] SYSPRP ParseCommands:Found supported command line option 'OOBE' 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f005f] SYSPRP ParseCommands:Found supported command line option 'SHUTDOWN' 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f005f] SYSPRP ParseCommands:Found supported command line option 'UNATTEND' 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f00d7] SYSPRP WinMain:Pre-validing 'cleanup' internal providers. 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:Running platform actions specified in action file for phase 3 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f00ba] SYSPRP SysprepSession::CreateSession: Successfully created instance with mount path C:, action file C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\ActionFiles\Cleanup.xml, and mode 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP SysprepSession::Validate: Beginning action execution from C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\ActionFiles\Cleanup.xml 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetStringValue: Getting REG_SZ value SysprepMode under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\Sysprep 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetValue: Getting value SysprepMode under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\Sysprep 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Warning SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetValue: Error from RegQueryValueEx on value SysprepMode under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\Sysprep; dwRet = 0x2 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP SysprepSession::CreateXPathForSelection: Sysprep mode in registry is 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetStringValue: Getting REG_SZ value PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetValue: Getting value PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP SysprepSession::CreateXPathForSelection: Processor architecture in registry is AMD64 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f0080] SYSPRP ActionPlatform::LaunchModule: Found 'Sysprep_Clean_Validate_Opk' in C:\Windows\System32\spopk.dll; executing it 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f0081] SYSPRP ActionPlatform::LaunchModule: Successfully executed 'Sysprep_Clean_Validate_Opk' from C:\Windows\System32\spopk.dll without error 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f00d7] SYSPRP WinMain:Pre-validing 'generalize' internal providers. 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:Running platform actions specified in action file for phase 1 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f00ba] SYSPRP SysprepSession::CreateSession: Successfully created instance with mount path C:, action file C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\ActionFiles\Generalize.xml, and mode 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP SysprepSession::Validate: Beginning action execution from C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\ActionFiles\Generalize.xml 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetStringValue: Getting REG_SZ value SysprepMode under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\Sysprep 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetValue: Getting value SysprepMode under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\Sysprep 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Warning SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetValue: Error from RegQueryValueEx on value SysprepMode under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\Sysprep; dwRet = 0x2 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP SysprepSession::CreateXPathForSelection: Sysprep mode in registry is 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetStringValue: Getting REG_SZ value PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP ActionPlatform::GetValue: Getting value PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE under key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP SysprepSession::CreateXPathForSelection: Processor architecture in registry is AMD64 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info [0x0f0080] SYSPRP ActionPlatform::LaunchModule: Found 'SysprepGeneralizeValidate' in C:\Windows\System32\AppxSysprep.dll; executing it 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Info SYSPRP Entering SysprepGeneralizeValidate (Appx) - validating whether all apps are also provisioned. 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Error SYSPRP Package king.com.CandyCrushSodaSaga_1.68.500.0_x86__kgqvnymyfvs32 was installed for a user, but not provisioned for all users. This package will not function properly in the sysprep image. 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Error SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80073cf2. 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Error SYSPRP Exit code of RemoveAllApps thread was 0x3cf2. 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Error [0x0f0082] SYSPRP ActionPlatform::LaunchModule: Failure occurred while executing 'SysprepGeneralizeValidate' from C:\Windows\System32\AppxSysprep.dll; dwRet = 0x3cf2 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Error SYSPRP SysprepSession::Validate: Error in validating actions from C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\ActionFiles\Generalize.xml; dwRet = 0x3cf2 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Error SYSPRP RunPlatformActions:Failed while validating SysprepSession actions; dwRet = 0x3cf2 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Error [0x0f0070] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:An error occurred while running registry sysprep DLLs, halting sysprep execution. dwRet = 0x3cf2 2016-06-28 13:26:42, Error [0x0f00d8] SYSPRP WinMain:Hit failure while pre-validate sysprep generalize internal providers; hr = 0x80073cf2 2016-06-28 13:26:45, Info [0x0f0052] SYSPRP Shutting down SysPrep log 2016-06-28 13:26:45, Info [0x0f004d] SYSPRP The time is now 2016-06-28 13:26:45

Link: How to use Sysprep with Windows 7 | The Windows Club

I know a lot of people use VMware, Virtual PC etc to create a base image that they sysprep and then deploy to their network PCs. My query is how does one go about removing, say, VMware drivers from their image after sysprepping and instead it picks up the relevant ones from under 'out-of-box' drivers in MDT when deployed? My image works fine but at the same time you'll find in C:\Drivers there'll be the workstation's drivers as well as VMware drivers.

Hi Guys, I am pulling my hair out on this problem. I just can't figure out what is wrong with it. I have written a unattend.xml answer file, have put it in the sysprep directory alsong with the mysysprep.exe and it errors and destroys my image everytime. Any Chance that somebody could have a look over it for me and tell me where I might be going wrong? Thanks en-GB Never true true Work 1 true true 1234 false Harefield Primary School The Headteacher 0409:00000409 en-GB en-GB en-GB FJ82H-XT6CR-J8D7P-XQJJ2-GPDD4 %Please input a computer name% false Harefield Primary School The Headteacher false GMT Standard Time harefield-pri.sch.uk Administrator 1234 harefield-pri.sch.uk

I've just about perfected our configuration of sysprep for use with Ghost so we can image onto different hardware however I have encountered one problem which as of yet I've not been able to solve! We are currently using an Avantis OpenCD Server, the client software creates a virtual dvd drive on the computer, by default this will pickup the first available drive letter. When using Ghost on its own I simply changed the drive letter to K: using Disk Management and that was that! However on sysprep'd computers it would appear the drive letter is reset to the first available drive letter. I've looked at using Diskpart and some kind of script to change the drive letter to K: combined with the RunOnce element of sysprep. However the problem is some computers in school have physical dvd drives, some do not, some computers also feature a recovery partition and some do not. Therefore the first available drive letter is different from one computer to another. So I cannot simply change it based on the ID in Diskpart or based on the current drive letter since it will always be different. Can anyone see a way around this? Is there perhaps a way to script a drive letter change based on the name of the drive in device manager? Clutching at straws here so any advice would be much appreciated.

Hi everyone I have an issue in school where we have 1 new computers in a computer suite develop an issue, so had hard drive replaced. Of course this means the rest of the suite are all fine and working (win 7), however they were put in a rush and no image was created. How the hell can I get an image off one of the working computers to transfer to the pc with a new drive? I mean there are all on the domain and networked. I assume you have to run sysprep, which is fine, but whats next? I can't run PXE boot and use WDS to capture an image, because how do I create the image and where the hell do I save it too? All the existing images are on the WDS server. Anyway, just one of the jobs I wanted to sort over easter. Regards

Just to let all know, NewSID from Sysinternals (Microsoft) is being retired today. While there will be a million mirrors on the internet afterwards, it might still be sensible to grab it today while the newest is on the site. NewSID v4.10 Get it while its there, "just in case" happy sidgenning

It may have been covered before but I just found a rather usefull looking article about integrating device drivers into Windows images. It gives a fairly usefull looking rundown on how the whole driver searching and installation thing works and also includes some truely usefull looking scripts. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc160991.aspx

Hi all, My name's Will and I'm the ICT Manager at a school in Birmingham. I've run into a problem that I'm having trouble resolving and I was hoping some of you guys could help out. I've created a spanking new image for some newlaptops that we've received and I'm about to Ghost it onto the other laptops. I always install XP Pro with SP2 from scratch using our Volume Licencing CD and Product Key which I've used for the 3 or so years. I've done the same this time around but to keep the image up to date I downloaded and installed SP3 along with the SP3 sysprep tools. The problem comes during mini-setup when I come to enter the Product Key. It's saying that the Product Key is invalid despite the fact I'm using the same product key that is a) on every XP pro pc in our entire network, and b) I used to install the image from scratch. I can proceed through mini-setup if I leave the product key blank, but then I have a 25 day activation limit. Obviously any attempt to activate Windows using my VLK is thwarted! Has anyone else come across this error? Incidently (or not as the case may be), I installed SP3 on our most recent desktops before sysprepping them, but the difference being I (inadvertently) used the SP2 version of sysprep. This worked without a problem. Is my image knackered? Any input will be gratefully received and if you need any more info, fire away... Cheers, Will

Hi - anyone got advice on how to do this?.. I've created a reference VM machine - set it up as desired, created a autounattend.xml file and sysprepped using this... but all it does is take my previously customised settings and replaces them with Windows Store... I've set the copyprofile to true but it doesn't seem to honour this. any tips? Jordy

Hi there, I am having some strange happenings with Windows 7 Pro and hoping someone can help me out. I have installed 2 versions of Windows 7 Pro on to a machine and then set up each side accordingly with all the software and drivers required for each, the idea behind the dual boot is one side is to be used at home and one side is to be used on site to prevent issues with home internet connections and home printers. Once I had finished setting up each side I ran sysprep with the generalize option so that the machine in question could be imaged and then copied on to other laptops of the same specification, we do our imaging with Fog. The problem is after I have run the sysprep only one of the operating systems will load, both are available on the boot loader but whichever one you select it always loads the same system. For example when I choose home it will load the home system but then when I choose work it will still load the home system. Really confusing, hoping someone can help me out or I will be prevented from having a dual boot setup.

I normally only handle servers and now I am back to dealing with desktops again and I am doing imaging with Ghost. I have my master image ready of XP Pro and will be pushing it to my clients. All I need to do on my clients is worry about getting a new SID. I have a small amount of clients and will handle the local settings upself after the image rather than via sysprep. So, when exactly do I run sysprep to regenerate the SID? If I run it after the image is pushed and then it reboots the client being imaged and takes me through the setup can I be assumed that I am okay? I really want to keep this as simple as possible.

Hi, I'm trying to duplicate a new windows 7 Pro Laptop to 17 others to save some time. Here is the scenario: Have 18 Dell E5500 Laptops with Windows 7 Pro Have customised one - went though oobe then installed required software, removed junk etc Now i want to duplicate it to the other 17 laptops - I want to use WDS to capture the image, then multicast it, as I have done with XP previously. With Xp I was able to copy the c:\sysprep folder from a factory fresh laptop using winpe (before it went through the oobe), then reapply it after I had made the changes to it. Capture - then use on other laptops. I tried the same process in W7 but the sysprep folder is no longer in the root of the drive. I've found an unattend.xml file in c:\windows\panther folder, but sysprep says the answer file contains one or more elements which have already been processed. The unattend also doesn't have any key in it unlike the xp version. Am I trying to achieve the impossible? Is the only way to install all the software manually 17 times? Thanks,

just recently downloaded windows 7 64bit, tried installing it on to a 64bit machine and was recieving error messages asking for the drivers for my CD drive. Because of this i had to install vista 64bit then do an upgrade. Now that i have windows 7 i would like to make an image from it. So i run my sysprep as normal and then i recieve a message of you cannot sysprep a machine thats had an upgrade, as sysprep requires a clean install. So my questions are:- 1. How can i get my 64bit to install from scratch? 2. How can i get the sysprep to work?

Hi All, I've been working on an unattend.xml file to be used with ghost for a few days now and I seem to be stuck! I'm trying to make it auto logon, enabling the local administrator account as it does so. When the unattend.xml file is run with sysprep the machine does auto login! it then works its mojo and reboots, but once it finishes sysprep the Local administrator account is not enabled? I Hope that makes sense!! I've attached the unattend.xml file bellow if you could have a quick look over it to see if I've missed anything that would be great! en-us en-GB en-US en-us 0809:00000809 ########## OnError IT ### true true false true true Work 1 ### IT bQB0AGIAMABhAGQAOQBQAGEAcwBzAHcAbwByAGQA false admin administrators admin bQB0AGIAMABhAGQAOQBBAGQAbQBpAG4AaQBzAHQAcgBhAHQAbwByAFAAYQBzAHMAdwBvAHIAZAA= false GMT Standard Time bQB0AGIAMABhAGQAOQBQAGEAcwBzAHcAbwByAGQA false true 1 administrator 1024 32 768 en-US en-US en-GB OOBE GMT Standard Time * ### IT c:\drivers 1 Thanks in advance for your help!! Ash

My Unattend.xml file keeps causing an error after the machine is booted back up. The error says that it cannot load the unattend.xml, due to settings. Can someone help me fix this code? Help is greatly needed and much appreciated! rti ******** kkoopman rti true true true true http://www.google.com en en en en true false false Restaurant Technologies Inc Restaurant Technologies Inc Central Standard Time XwBiAHUAbABrAG8AaQBsAF8AUABhAHMAcwB3AG8AcgBkAA== false Support Administrators Support rticorporate

We have to use an archaic method of PC deployment at my current place of work due to geographic network limitations. Currently we configure a PC to a bare spec without Office or specialist software, Sysprep it and image it out from portable HDD. I should add that the network is tied down to mac address and auto joining the domain isn't possible. I've fully automated sysprep, apart from the PC name, which on our exclusively Dell machines, is the service tag. What I want to do is, pull the service tag from the bios and use it as the PC name silently during the sysprep process. Anyone have any ideas? I have this script which get's the service tag: Option Explicit ' Set Local Computer Dim colItems, Computer, objItem, Ts, Z1 Computer = "." Dim Act :Set Act = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Dim Fso :Set Fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Dim Txt :Txt = Act.SpecialFolders("Desktop") & "\Bios.txt" Dim Wmi :Set Wmi = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & Computer & "\root\CIMV2") Set Ts = Fso.CreateTextFile(Txt) Set colItems = Wmi.ExecQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_BIOS",,48) For Each objItem in colItems Ts.WriteLine objItem.SerialNumber Next Ts.Close() Act.Run(Chr(34) & Txt & Chr(34)),1,True

This is annoying the hell out of me... I have created a lovely clean installation for some HP nx6110 laptops. Everything is set up just right and I've tried to sysprep. I've followed the same process as before but it just doesn't work. I have popped the sysprep files in C:\sysprep and the sysprep.inf is as follows: ;SetupMgrTag [unattended] OemSkipEula=Yes InstallFilesPath=C:\sysprep\i386 [GuiUnattended] AdminPassword= EncryptedAdminPassword=Yes AutoLogon=Yes AutoLogonCount=1 OEMSkipRegional=1 OEMDuplicatorstring=HP_nx6110_SCI TimeZone=85 OemSkipWelcome=1 [userData] ProductKey= FullName="Baines School" OrgName="Baines School" ComputerName=* [Display] BitsPerPel=32 Xresolution=800 YResolution=600 [TapiLocation] CountryCode=44 Dialing=Tone AreaCode=01253 [RegionalSettings] LanguageGroup=1 Language=00000809 [setupMgr] DistFolder=C:\sysprep\i386 DistShare=windist [identification] JoinWorkgroup=baines_build [Networking] InstallDefaultComponents=Yes I have tried using the SP2 and SP3 versions of sysprep but they both do the same thing... they don't skip the mini-setup. I just get the annoying blue screen with the swirly thing and the music! Sysprep obviously does something though because it removes the c:\sysprep folder and causes the mini-setup to kick in... it's like the sysprep.inf file isn't there. HELP!