Sysprepped image will not complete setup

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I'm having a problem installing/setting up an image.

Background: I've created a Windows 7 Enterprise image (i.e. installed OS, installed applications, configured settings, etc.). Then I sysprepped it and captured/applied it with imagex (onto a computer with identical hardware as the original). When I boot up the new machine, windows starts and runs setup. After the machine displays "Setup is starting services" I get an error that says "Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the computer." Restarting the machine does no good.

Diagnoses and Troubleshooting: These are the steps that I've tried so far:
1) Disabled Windows Media Player Network Sharing service

2) Set skip rearm in answer file

3) Looked for registry key problems:

  • Ran tracerpt setup.etl -o logfile.csv
  • Found (c0000022): Failed to open child key: [Symantec.Norton.Antivirus.IEContextMenu] error
  • Deleted key
  • (Recreated key when solution didn't work)

4) Set the Registry Size Limit to "unlimited":

  • Created RegistrySizeLimit at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control with Type: REG_DWORD and value: 0xffffffff (4294967295)
  • Rebooted
  • Ran SFC /SCANNOW
  • Ran WinRE startup repair

That's as much as I could figure out. There are supposed to be hotfixes related to KB articles 981542 and 977392, but according to Microsoft, they are already included in Service Pack 1, which is a part of the image.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I could get setup to complete?

windows-registry
setup
deployment
sysprep
asked on Super User May 26, 2012 by graf_ignotiev

2 Answers

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If you're still building reference images on physical hardware, you're doing it wrong. Use a Virtual Machine to build your reference image. Always, always, ALWAYS!

Build your images in a VM using MDT. Don't use AIK tools (WISM & ImageX) by themselves. MDT will build the image for you. If you use the ltisuspend script right away in the image builder task sequence you will save lots and lots of time if you build the image in a VM.

answered on Super User Mar 12, 2013 by MDT Guy • edited Mar 18, 2013 by MDT Guy
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I had the same problem with windows 7 RTM last year and the hotfixes you mentioned did fix the problem then. I am now doing the same for windows 7 sp1 (and getting the same problem) and am hoping the hotfixes do the job again. One other thing I think I had to do was enable the local administrator account. Unfortunately I never found a way to fix a machine that already got into that state.

Update: I just tried it then and the hotfixes say they are not applicable, which makes sense. Enabling the admin account did the trick for me though, at least with a fresh machine. I think if you can find a way to get in and change enable the admin account you can be good.

I think you should be able to press shift+f10 to bring up a command prompt and then type mmc. You should then be able to add the local users and computers snap in get access to the users. You'll need to reset the password before enabling it as by default it doesn't meet complexity requirements.

It's a lot easier walking on previous trodden ground!

answered on Super User May 31, 2012 by Yoshiwaan • edited May 31, 2012 by Yoshiwaan

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