Linked clones all have the same DNS name, why, how do I fix?

[gmoneyVMNoob]

I have three pools of automated linked clones.  One works great.  The other two, all of the VMs have unique names, as configured in the pool creation, but the DNS names are not unique and all have the same name, the name of the snapshot.  The snapshot is from a clone of one of the machines in the "working" pool.  I have tried making the clone without customization and relying on quickprep (no scripts) and although they have unique VM names, all the DNS names are the same.  I get the same result when I clone and use customization and specify "use same name as VM name" option.  I see a machine with the VM name being added to Active Directory, but this is not the name that shows up as DNS name in View Administrator.  I'm a bit of a noob, thanks in advance!

[mpryor]

You should not build a template from a linked-clone in another pool as the quick-prep customization will have already happened and the state will be seen as complete - make any changes you need in a copy of the parent image instead.

[vTimD]

Sounds like you hit your SysPrep limit. You can only clone a machine so many times before windows stops it. You can go in and clear the logs out and set a registry key on the master image to essentially "re-arm" SysPrep. I wrote a fix for it here:

Sysprep: A story of failure… | vTimD

[jeostang50]

The original parent image was accidentally deleted. So the only VM I have of the parent is one of the linked clones from that pool. Is there anyway to clear it to show quick prep has not been run?

Thanks for the help.

[larsonm]

The article vTimD provided in his post is likely the solution, but I'll let him elaborate if needed.

[vTimD]

The problem you are going to run into is all the disks. If its persistent, the persistent disk is there, and the profile is mapped to it. The temp disk will be there, and all the temp files will be routed to that. I have never tried, but I would imagine you'll run into quite a few problems trying to make a template out of a linked-clone. I would honestly start over. Re-build the base image as close to the old parent as you can. Once that is done, I would re-compose the pool off that new parent image.