Deploying from template doesn't seem to complete customization

[khughes]

I'm trying to deploy from a template using the customization wizard. The deploy part works fine and in events it says it has started the customization process but doesn't seem to reboot, just sits there. I try logging into the VM and it accepts my login, but then just kicks me out instantly. In VC2.5 the process only took about a minute or two and this has been going on for 5+ min. I have redone the sysprep files in the directory, tried it a couple times thinking maybe the domain join was holding it up but workgroup has produced the same thing.

Any thoughts on how I can get the customization up and running, I'm tempted to just clone the template and run sysprep myself at this point, but would like to have this up and running correctly when I do need to use it.

• Kyle

[khughes]

Ok so I restarted the VM and then the customization kicked in. Not sure why it didn't automatically restart to kick it into gear...

• Kyle

[Troy_Clavell]

question: Was this clone/template set to autologin? I had this issue with a clone I was doing awhile back. The autologin would fail and then just sit there at the login prompt. Once I reset the VM the customization process kicked in as normal.

[khughes]

No it was not, the only thing I checked was to have it power on after the deploy finished. Although we don't use the default "administrator" name to the administrator account so maybe it couldn't login? Seemed once I restarted it, everything went fine and finished the customization. We never had that problem before with VC2.5 so it really threw me off.

• Kyle

[Troy_Clavell]

2008 guest? We rename the "administrator" account too. But with the 2008 and the VMware Customization the account gets renamed back to administrator.

I don't have an exact answer, but I can say I've seen the behavior you are talking about. The only difference is, we don't join our VM to the domain during the customization process.

Also, if 2008, it seems to take a little longer for the process to kick in after the initial bootup to login prompt. But 5 minutes may be a bit long.

[khughes]

This was for a Windows 2003 guest (presentation server) which made it a bit weird, but good to know about the administrator account rename in 2008. I sometimes join to the domain (since I haven't seen any issues with it) but most of the time I join it to the domain by hand as well.

• Kyle