VMware Communities: Message List - Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine? (VCI 2.5 and EXS 3.5)

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

volkmanlg — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:42:06 GMT

Hi,

the information from Doc7 was very helpful and made my day fine again I use VC2.5 Update 4 english on german windows server 2003 SP2.

My problem was, all information about this issue that I found before was to put the files under C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware Virtualcenter\sysprep. But that is wrong now.

Obviously the tipps were not for the german version of windows server

Cheers

Volkman

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

Doc7 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:52:59 GMT

Report:

After Update to VC 2.5 U3 (we had problems with joining a domain through customisation with 2.5 U2) guest customisation works with the above path.

I took the sysprep-tools from the CD1 for W2K3-Server R2 SP2 and out of the extracted SP3 for WinXP SP3.

I tested:

Windows Server 2003 R2 (Standard, German, SP2, x86 and x64)

Windows XP Professional SP3(German)

both with and without joining a domain.

worked all flawless :))

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

Doc7 — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:37:06 GMT

one addition from my side:

VC 2.5.0 (build 104215) / ESX 3.5 / German installation

Using this path "C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003"the VC did NOT offer me the customisation options.

Using the path "C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\All Users\Anwendungsdaten\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003" i can initiate the guest-customisation.

First test is running and i'll report the result.

regards

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine? (VCI 2.5 and EXS 3.5)

Salvi — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:30:53 GMT

Hi,

How do you resolve this ssue?? I have the same problem, but I can not to resolve it yet... Can you help me??

Regards,

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

itklu — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:24:23 GMT

YEAH - thx to hfourie!!

After we have updated to v3.5, the XP-Client Customizing-template doesn't fit...But the Server-Custo-Temp was still ok...

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

wayneoakley99 — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:59:17 GMT

for what its worth when i drill down into the directory on a install using bukls 64192 the set of directories are already there for

2k, svr2003, svr2003-64, xp and xp-64

i guess the information must not have made it into the documentation.

wayne

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

divintas — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 07:44:54 GMT

ATTENTION to Language specific installations:

For example:

You have a native language installation. Win2003 SP1 GERMAN

and you are using the standard Virtual Center installation. This is the english Version.

THEN your PATH NEED to look like this:

<ALL USERS>\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\<os>

means for this GERMAN case

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003

be carefull the Folder Application Data remains english. IT IS NOT "Anwendungsdaten".

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine? (VCI 2.5 and EXS 3.5)

ExCon — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:46:19 GMT

My guess would be that the password contains non-English characters. Just a guess, though...

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine? (VCI 2.5 and EXS 3.5)

dwchan — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:02:16 GMT

I find got my sysprep to work, but now i am getting this weird decryption error. It say that "The VirtualCenter server is unable to decrypt passwords stored in the customization specification" Has anyone see this before?

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

gabriol82 — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:03:50 GMT

Hi all,

PAY ATTENTION TO THE OS LANGUAGE!!!

The data path MUST be this:

c:\Documents and Settings\All Users| Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep

Hope to be useful!!!

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

dafishe — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:00:46 GMT

I was able to get the customization to kick off on the newly deployed Windows XP VM from my template using the customization settings.

I had to convert my template to a VM, upgrade the VMTOOLS, then convert it back to a template. then when I powered it on it sat at the login screen for about 2 min. then rebooted and did the sysprep wizard.

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

mclark — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:51:17 GMT

Mine is doing the exact same thing. I deployed and got the cycling login thing. I rebooted and it then sysprepped. I then tried to log out and it would log back in automatically every time without asking for a password. I rebooted and then it was fine. I'm also like you, in that it would make me nervous to put that into production...

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

toanpham — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:13:40 GMT

I have no issue interm of customize the template for the deployment after extrated the deploy.cab to the desired folders in Virtual Center. But one thing does not work is that it does not take the credentials for VMs to join the domain.

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

DanDill — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:03:21 GMT

I had this wierd bug where the machine I was trying to clone (svr 2003 SP2) did go through the clone/customization process after I got the sysprep files in the specific directory (see previous post) however it came up and would take my password to login to the machine, but then immediately kick back to the login screen like something that messed up with the credentials perhaps.

Then after I shut it down completely then started it back up it went through the mini-setup process and actually came up sysprepped and life was good. However that being said it was just a test server which has been working fine so far however due to that little snafoo I still don't trust it/wouldn't put it into production...

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

dafishe — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:19:12 GMT

I to ran into the same issue after upgrading to VC 2.5.. I also discovered if you extract the Deploy cab file to the specific OS folder it would allow you to customize when deploying from a template.

however what I found is that it never uses the customization when it deploys from the template. does it work for y'all? if you delpoy from the template, then customize.. when the VM fires up does it go through the customization process? it doesn't for me. it did before my upgrade to VC 2.5

thank you

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

toanpham — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:30:10 GMT

I think VMWare did this intentionally to avoid Microsoft legal action. I remember that I did not have to do this extra steps in earlier version of VC. The license stuff in the virtual world become really complicated. Thanks for the posts, guys.

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

mofabio — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:09:58 GMT

Sound good guy!!

The workaround is right. In attach deploy tools for XP and 2K3.

regards Fabio

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

hfourie — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:26:35 GMT

WOO HOO!!! Cracked it.

I can now Customize W2k3 Server as well as XP Pro.

First I folowed DanDill advise to take the sysprep files from deploy.cab from a W2k3 R2 (SP1) CD. This then unlocked the Client Customization for W2k3 servers. This got me thinking..... So I took the sysprep files from the deploy.cab file from WinXP Pro SP2 CD, and put it in the xp folder. Bob's your uncle. I am now able to customize XP Pro as well.

Be sure to use the folder structure under c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\xp and c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003.

Hope this works for all you guys aswell.

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

mofabio — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:57:17 GMT

Hi all,

I open a new request to support about this bug.

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

DanDill — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:32:23 GMT

We recently upgraded to VC 2.5, it seems that cloning an XP or server 2003 template won't check the 1.1 folder as mentioned previously and as worked previously in VC 2.0, like others it seems so we're in the same boat.

I've put the 03 SP1 sysprep in the svr2003 folder, which allows us now to clone from 03 templates just fine however we still can't clone XP. Tried putting the sysprep 1.1 in the specific XP folder as well as the 03 SP1 sysprep files in the XP folder, all didn't work.

Just felt like throwing that out to save your time trying it.

Waiting for the fix...

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

mofabio — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:15:44 GMT

The guide tells to create directory for each S.O and exctract sysprep in 1.1 directory. It works in 2.0.x after the upgrade it does't work.

My directory structure is:

c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep it contains following directory 1.1, 2k, srv2003, srv2003-64, xp, xp-64

This procedure is described in http://www.vmware.com/support/vc13/doc/c13installsysprep3.html

But it seems doesn't work for 2.5 VIC

Cheers Fabio

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

toanpham — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:38:27 GMT

I think it's VC2.5 bug. It worked perfectly fine in VC2.1 and ESX3.01 as well as VC2.2 and ESX3.02. I've tried to extract the SysPrep 1.1 to the indocated folder in VC but when trying to deploy VMs from the templates, the same message indicated that there's no available customize tools...Anyone else have the same issue?

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

JonT — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:26:50 GMT

Virtual Center also creates a folder for the XP Deploy tools (deploy.cab) that it will use for sysprep on an XP desktop VM....

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine? (VCI 2.5 and EXS 3.5)

JonT — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:25:55 GMT

I am still working to get my VC upgraded to 2.5, but from what I see the "1.1" sysprep files are different from the 2003 SP1 cabinet (deploy.cab) files that are needed for sysprep on 2k3. Correct me if I am wrong but 1.1 is for Win 2k. Someone previously posted that they had installed thiers in the \svr2003\ folder which is where mine are and it works fine.

Thanks

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

mofabio — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:17:10 GMT

Yes is not pleasant run sysprep and parameter on each machine. Please can somebody involve VMware on this bugs?

Cheers Fabio

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

hfourie — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:01:18 GMT

Im getting the same error. Also VC 2.5 and esx 3.5. Was working perfectly on 2.0 and 3.0.2.

This seems to be a VC 2.5 problem. Who has clout at VMware to get this resolved. Manually running NewSid on 50 VDI desktops is not fun...

Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine? (VCI 2.5 and EXS 3.5)

mofabio — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:22:27 GMT

I've installed VIC 2.5 but the deploy tools can't customize the new machine "Windows customization resources were not found on the server". Where should put sysprep files?

In attach my issue also I have put sysprep in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\1.1

any idea?

Thanks Fabio

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

toanpham — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:43:08 GMT

^{That's the location where I extract the file downloaded from Microsoft. I dtill don't know why it doesn't work. This is VC2.5 and ESX3.5}

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

Hairyman — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:20:08 GMT

Mine is in the same location as ExCon and works when i choose to use it

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

ExCon — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:00:16 GMT

I have mine in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\1.1

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

toanpham — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:34:50 GMT

I have the same issue. Somehow, when deloying VMs from the template, I can't customize although I did extract the sysprep file download from Microsoft. Any ideas?

Re: Where should I place the sysprep file to customize the deploy machine?

djurden — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:10:10 GMT

They should go into the appropriate folder in this path:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep

So if it is Windows Server 2003 x32 sysprep files they should go in:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003