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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

Upgraded to vCenter 5 now I can't clone win7 guests

I'm getting the following error when trying to clone and use a guest customization.

"Customization of the guest operating system 'windows7_64Guest' is not supported in this configuration.  Microsoft Vista (TM) and Linux guests with Logical Volume Manager are only supported for recent ESX host and VMware Tools versions.

All the hosts in the cluster are running ESXi 5.  vCenter is running on Windows Server 2008 R2 with the latest VMware tools installed.  The guest OS also has the latest version installed and was recently upgraded to VM Version 8.

I've searched and was only able to find kb.vmware.com/kb/1020716 and a few others like it that don't seem to apply to this issue.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

by any chance is the Guest OS identifier wrong?  Edit Setting--Options--Guest Operating System

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

I should have mentioned that I checked it and it is correct.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

on the source, try changing the guest OS to Windows Server 2008 (64bit) instead of R2, then try to clone it.  Upon completion, you can change the OS identifier back to R2

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

The guest VM is Windows 7 64 bit, but I've tried changing it to a couple of diferen't options to no avail.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

missed that, sorry... I took the OS for vCenter as your Guest OS. Maybe try powering off the source, making a note of the datastore it's on, remove it from inventory, browse the datastore, find the vmx, add to inventory and try to clone again?

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

I've been playing around with a couple of options.  I can clone the machine its just the guest customization that doesn't work.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

maybe create from scratch a new guest customization specification, then use that to sysprep?

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

I thought of that just before you posted, same error Smiley Sad

Something must be screwed up in vCenter.  Maybe I'll go back to square one with that.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

are you using a powered off guest and cloning from it?  If so, maybe converting it to a template and then deploy off that may help?  When the new virtual machine wizard pops up and you get to the point to use/create/no customization, create new.

Also, you did not sysprep the source in question did you?

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

The machine was a template, I converted it back to a vm.  Did the upgrade to VM Hardware V8 and installed the newer VMware tools.  I was trying to clone with it powered off but before I made it back into a template.  I just tried converting it to a template and then doing the deploy from template and got the same error.

No it hasn't been syspreped.  Also yes, its off.

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

Ok this just got more complicated.

I am able to clone and customize a windows 7 vm.

The one that works I haven't done the "Upgrade Virtual Hardware" on.  It also has the older vmware tools installed.

The issue seems to be from upgrading the vm's Virtual Hardware to the new spec.

I should add that the machine I am able to clone from was originaly created from the template vm that I am now unable to clone from.

So spec wise they were identical previous to the "Upgrade Virtual Hardware".

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

if you upgrade the virtual hardware before the guest tools, that can be a very bad thing.

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

For the template VM and actualy all the rest of them, that are in use I've allready upgraded the tools a few days ago then powered them all off to upgrade the hardware last night.

The one that is working right now is in our training section which hasn't been in use for some time and why I haven't got around to messing with it yet.

The next thing I'm going to try is to remove the VM that doesn't work from inventory and create a new one with the same configuration as far as the hardware assigned to it.  Attach the current template vm's VMDK and see if it will let me clone and customize it.

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

I tried what I said I would in the above post and that also gave me the same error.

However I took the old vm that I have not yet upgraded the hardware on, removed the VMDK that was attached to that vm and attached the Template VMDK that I've been struggling with and it is working.

Thus it appears atleast in my configuration (ESXi5 fresh installs on host vCenter 5 upgraded from 4.1) that with the new virtual machine hardware configuration that customization of clones is broken.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

you may want to open an SR with VMware Support. Maybe you hit a bug?  If no bug, maybe they can review some logs, setup a WebEx session and get it resolved for you.

Keep us posted on the outcome... Wish I had more ideas

zizux
Contributor
Contributor

The other machines would error out at the begining.  Using the way last posted, it didnt fail right away but it did eventualy.  Smiley Sad Support request opened.

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TonyCoffman
Contributor
Contributor

Any news from the support team on this.

We hit the same issue today but the guest is Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise x32

Found this thread

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

Not yet, I have uploaded everything under the sun to them.

At this point the rep is going to webex in and watch it but we just haven't yet.

Interestingly one of our machines is able to clone, and I can not figure out what is diferent about it vs the others.  They are all Win7 64bit and all have the same virtual hw ver.

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zizux
Contributor
Contributor

SOLVED!

The issue had to do with the vmware tools service inside the guest.

The VM I was using was a template, that I had automaticaly upgraded the vmware tools for.

Apparently it didn't do it correctly and the service wasn't running.  Come to find out vcenter tags something in the vmx file that indicates vmware tools being installed.

This was missing due to the service not running last time the machine was powered up.

The fix was to uninstall the tools and reinstall them, rebooting each time.

Then I was able to clone with customization.

Hope this helps!

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