VMware Horizon Community
nra1941
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Cannot add Windows 7 Professional 32-bit to Active Directory using customization

     I have a clean install of a retail copy of windows 7 Pro 32-bit (SP!)  (I don't mind activating 10 Win7 manually, so w/o VLK is no issue for me), immediately I installed the VMtools, reboot it and shutdown, enable Administrator account and set new password, removed all other accounts, turned off firewall, no Windows Update performed. Shutoff,  then I clone it and keep the original one off at all time.

    As for the Win7 copy, I added it to AD domain, reboot it, then install Horizon View Agent, reboot, then I login to it using local administrator account, remove it from Active Directory, provide ADDC account info, then reboot it.  When it boots up, I shut it down and cloned it into a new templateX.

    I setup New Customization:  Here is my setup:

  Properties:    Target VM Operating System:  Windows,     Customization Spec Name:  Win7-Custom

  Registration:    Name: Labs    Orgization: Ztech Inc

  Computer Name:   "Use the virtual MAchine Name"

  Windows License: empty

  Adm Password:    msy1967sys

  Time Zone: CST

  Run Once:    None

  Network:   I choose two method:   (1) "Use Standard...."   or   (2) "Manual Setup,  NIC1,  DHCP,   DNS: 192.168.1.5"    192.168.1.5 is my DNS, and my gateway is 192.168.1.1     I tried both

  WorkGroup or Domain:    Windows Server Domain:   ztech.lab

                                       Username:   data2008@ztech.lab   (I use data2008 as the adm account for my Domain),   Password:  MS1369Dj   (domain password)

Operating System Option:  Generate SID

    I tried to deploy new VM using the

    If you watched Keith Barker's Horizon View video, he had great difficulty in this, I also tried his suggestion without success.  No mater how I try this, I could NOT have new VM using templateX and the Customization method (as above).  The new VMs reject all login using ZTECH\data2008, Administrator account also disabled!

     Since I need to build manual and auto pools, I need to make sure Windows 7 can be deployed automatically by Connection Server and added to Active Direcotory automatically, but one week, no success, it is obvious to me VMware has a sloppy attitude to their software (so unreliable), such bad experiences happened to me many times,

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JackMac4
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Enthusiast

I think you're likely reaching the Windows limit on cloning. Yes, there is one. Rather than clone your base copy, why not just create a baseline shapshot. That will save you a SID regen and might make things working.

---- Jack McMichael | Sr. Systems Engineer VMware End User Computing Contact me on Twitter @jackwmc4
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vTimD
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Enthusiast

This sounds roughly like an issue I ran into. On the same lines as what JackMack4 advised. There is a sysprep limit. I was trying to sysprep a machine that was already sysprepped from a base image. It had a bunch of stale sysprep logs on it. I had to go into the log files in the template, delete the old log info, then go into the registry and set sysprep to re-arm. I wrote a blog up on the fix, listed below.

Blog: Sysprep: A story of failure… | vTimD

-vTimD http://www.vtimd.com If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or Correct buttons to award points.
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