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,
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.
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