Comments on: How to Sysprep Windows Server 2008

By: James

James — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:16:22 +0000

Please note that I am a developer, not a sysadmin. I have some familiarity with sysprep for getting testing/dev VMs up and running, but do not purport to be an expert. I would recommend asking your questions on ServerFault.com so that you can get answers from real experts.

By: Alessandro Feltrin

Alessandro Feltrin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:18:35 +0000

Hi Folks. I have a question for you … Hope that someone will be able to help me …
My customer has cloned a Windows 2008 Server R2 three times in order to have some lab machines. Now he has attempted to join them to the Active Directory where two Domain Controllers exist. One of them is the machine from which the others W2K8 systems have been cloned with VMWare. Now he gets some problems that seems due to the fact that Systems have the same SID.
Does anybody know a correct way to renew the SID in these VMs? Is not a license problem, customer has the right license for each server. It’s just a need to have more than one system working in a few time.
Hope someone can give me some suggestion
Thanks.
Alessandro

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:01:02 +0000

James, thanks for the article, BUT you make a statement that is not entirely correct – stating it is the same for 64-bit and 32-bit – not necessarily true. For one thing, there is a Hotfix / patch of sorts that ‘allegedly’ puts on the 64-bit Sysprep tool and the accompanying deploy.cab file for 64-bit versions (especially W2k3 R2 64-bit; the install of the w2k3 o/s does not automatically install sysprep); next, for whatever reason, W2k8 also does NOT always install sysprep – don’t ask why – i’m not sure. So, there are some subtle syswow64 differences and along those lines; wow6432 also maybe?

AND, last but not least, you never answered “Alex’s” comment, which is the issue I am having:

2008 Server Enterprise 64bit
I tried
C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\sysprep.exe
and
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\sysprep\sysprep.exe
and both of them giving me a message:

======
System Preparation Tool 3.14
——
The 32-bit version of OPK tools does not support WOW64.
Please use the 64-bit version of the OPK tools instead.
======

Alex.

By: Nathan Boyd

Nathan Boyd — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:41:53 +0000

Thanks James, for the nice concise explanation!

@Hayden: That’s by design. Sysprep returns the installation to the “first reboot after installation” but with the whatever updates installed. Typically any customizations and/or settings will be wiped during sysprep. If you want customization after Sysprep, then look for the link to Brian Madden’s blog above.

By: David Nilson

David Nilson — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:23:32 +0000

@Hayden Hancock
That is the EXPECTED behaviour of Sysprep . Read “What is Sysprep” at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc783215(WS.10).aspx

By: David Nilson

David Nilson — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:20:33 +0000

@NoCertsJustLife
You are correct that duplite WSUS SIds will cause one and only one of the machines with duplicates to show up in WSUS at one time.
But thats a different SID and is easily solved by deleting the WSUS SID fro mthe registry, it will auto-create on next boot.
Try this in a .CMD file on an effected machine or in logon scripts:

net stop wuauserv

REM — Clear out history and downloaded updates – start Fresh
cd %windir%\SoftwareDistribution
del DataStore /q
rmdir Download /S /Q

REM – Normal
:SUS_normal
Reg DELETE “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update” /v LastWaitTimeout /f
Reg DELETE “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update” /v DetectionStartTime /f
Reg Delete “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update” /v NextDetectionTime /f

REM – d.a.n. To regenerate SUSclientID
reg delete “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate” /v SusClientId /f

net start wuauserv

:SUS_end
wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow /reportnow

:SUS_End2

By: Hayden Hancock

Hayden Hancock — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:19:17 +0000

I’ve tried performing this method in a virtual environment (VirtualBox). Everything seems to work fine except that my VHD changes what I had in my domain. For instance, I used company.com as my domain but after sysprep, it put that into the WORKGOUP field.

Any suggestions on what I am doing wrong? Thanks!

By: NoCertsJustLife

NoCertsJustLife — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:10:27 +0000

A note to the cloners – Failure to change the SID, although not required, will make a WSUS database fail. Near as I can tell WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) has a SQL database that is key’ed on the machine SID and it ignors domain SID.

If you clone server “A” to make “B”, “C”, etc., you may only find server “A” in your WSUS database. If you group your servers in WSUS to allow/deny selected updates, you may be selecting all type “A” servers by selecting just “A”. Always “Generalize” your clone source, or find and use NewSID.

And oh, by the way, if your source computer is already joined to a domain, remove it from the domain (make it a workgroup computer) before SYSPREP. This is another source of pain.

By: Joseph

Joseph — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:04:48 +0000

Hi James,

i did a sysprep using the sysprep in windows 2008 R2 sysprep.exe in the system32 folder. I clicked (OOBE) and shutdown option i selected “Quit” and i rebooted my machine manually . It prompted me to change password when i entered my old password it said “Access Denied” . What exactly happened ? i am lost , and i did not clone the syspred image from that machine as i was afriad it would happen to all my machines if i cloned it. Would you advise me ? Thanks.

By: William Hatten

William Hatten — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:39:03 +0000

I trying to sysprep a 2008 server and use Imagex to get the image file but it keeps failing as it does not find the image file. Could you please help with that process.