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Questions tagged [sysprep]

Sysprep is the name of Microsoft's System Preparation Utility for Microsoft Windows operating system deployment.

History

Sysprep was originally introduced for use with Windows NT 4.0. Later versions introduced for Windows 2000 and Windows XP are available for download from Microsoft and included in the Windows CD. Windows Vista marks the first version of Microsoft's NT operating system to include a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) independent version of Sysprep in the "out of box" installation.

Purpose

Desktop deployment is typically performed via disk cloning applications. Sysprep can be used to prepare an operating system for disk cloning and restoration via a disk image.

Windows operating system installations include many unique elements per installation that need to be "generalized" before capturing and deploying a disk image to multiple computers. Some of these elements include:

  • Computer name
  • Security Identifier (SID)
  • Driver Cache

Sysprep seeks to solve these issues by allowing for the generation of new computer names, unique SIDs, and custom driver cache databases during the Sysprep process.

Administrators can use tools such as SetupMgr.exe (Windows XP) or the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows Vista/7/Server 2008) to generate answer files that Sysprep will process on new computer deployments.

Screenshot

enter image description here

185 questions
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Does Running Sysprep Remove Applications Previously Installed

I have a virtualized copy of Windows Server 2008 R2 installed with some applications already installed on it (not server roles) and I would like to re-deploy it on a number of other servers across my enterprise exactly as it is - including the…
slickboy
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Should you defrag before capturing an image?

If I'm capturing an image with imagex.exe /capture ..., does it matter if I defrag the hard disk prior to doing so (or strictly speaking, before sysprep)? Is there any benefit to doing so with a file-based imager like this? Would there be any…
Tim Lehner
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Windows 7 Unattended install - Not really 'unattended'

I have been trying for a few days to get a correct and working Unattended.xml answerfile for Windows 7. Trying to create a completely unattended install of Windows 7 to where a tech can insert USB drive, boot from it, and wait for the setup to…
PenguinCoder
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Disable Security Center on SYSPREP-ed Windows XP

I am deploying Windows XP SP3 images in a stand-alone environment using SYSPREP. I am updating an existing image with patches, drivers, etc. Although my first images never launched Windows Security Center at first login, my new images are.…
Steve Kalemkiewicz
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Sysprep fails when using Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager

Sysprep Fails when creating a new Template in Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager: Error (706) Sysprep failed for virtual machine VMName Recommended Action Try the operation again. Is there a more detailed log available for this error? This…
Chris Ballance
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How to use sysprep for a vhd

We have a vhd copy of physical a windows vista machine. Since we don't want to touch the physical machine, we like to run sysprep on the vhd. Unfortunately this vhd does not boot on hyper-v. Is there a way to sysprep this vhd without booting it?
BetaRide
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How can I sysprep a VMware image and retain my additional hard drive

I am creating a base VM as the start of what I hope to be a VM tree of all the machine configurations that I regularly use. On this base machine I have a small system drive of 10GB and a larger data drive of 40GB. When I sysprep the VM it removes…
Charlie
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What does sysprep with the generalize option do on Windows Server 2008 R2?

I want to create a template of Windows Server 2008 R2 for virtualization. Therefore I use the sysprep tool by Microsoft. This works fine. I just wonder what the generalize option is good for. Thanks
Klaus
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Sysprep on Windows 7 for a non-windows admin?

I'm needing to use sysprep to deploy some Windows 7 machines. I can't find any resources that explain this very easily. In particular, I've loaded all of the programs I want for the image onto a computer. If I want to use prepares this for cloning…
askvictor
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Windows 10: Provisioned app not installed properly, correct version but 0 bytes app and data

I'm trying to provision an application as part of an image prepared in audit mode and then syspreped and then captured. The app is sideloaded since it is a Line Of Business app and the version of Windows Enterprise 2019 LTSC, version 1809 build…
Antti Stålnacke
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Sysprep - Win 10 1903 - language packs

Microsoft in their infinite wisdom appear to have changed their approach to multi-lingual support in Windows 10. Whereas a normal user can install language packs via the language settings, this breaks Sysprep, as the user context appears to be used…
Pres
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Unable to connect to an Azure VM (sysprepped image)

I created a Server 2008R2 VM in Hyper V, ran Sysprep on it, then uploaded the VHD to Azure via Azcopy. Then I converted the VHD file into a managed disk, and created a VM from the managed disk. Now I am unable to RDP to this VM to complete the…
Jon
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Install windows updates along with PXE install

Here is the problem. I do testing.. I need windows, not by choice, for testing purposes. I need physical hardware to do my testing. To do this, I install windows from PXE. The problem with this is, that I now need to have all of the windows…
Rusty Weber
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What steps are needed after cloning from a image Ubuntu to new system? (sysprep, unconfig)

I have an imaged (clonezilla) system image of a Ubuntu setup with a bunch of settings. Now I am wondering, what needs to be changed if I use the clonezilla image to create always new systems from this image. The things, which I can immediately name…
cilap
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how do I disable "Allow your PC to be discoverable by other PCs and devices" blade

This posters issue is a good description of the issue I want to address. I'm building an image based on Windows 10 Enterprise IOT. When the devices with this image are built in the factory they show the 'make pc discoverable' blade. when they first…
Damo
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