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Craig981
Contributor
Contributor

Horizon 7.6 / vSphere 6.7 and Win10 1803 stuck in Customizing

Hi everyone,

I've setup Horizon 7.6 on vSphere 6.7.  I've installed Windows 10 1803 into a persistent desktop pool.  I created a standard Windows 10 image with some cleanup as per best practices.

I created a VM Customization for Win10 to apply a license, generate a new SID, join the domain etc.

The Win10 VM is started by Horizon and runs, appears to run a sysprep task/customisation and reboots aok.  I can see the VM has joined the domain.  Then in Horizon it stays on "Customizing" fooorrrevvvveeer.  However, if I login to the VM suddenly on the Horizon console it springs to life and shows the Agent version and the status changes to "Unassigned user connected"  (since I'm on the VM without going via Horizon).

I tried changing the VM Customization to login as Administrator, which worked. However this didn't trick Horizon to trick the process and change the VM's status to "Available".  I reverted to "Unassigned user connected"

I came across these articles but the changes didn't make a difference unfortunately:

Cleaning up Win10 with modern apps - https://www.htguk.com/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about_12/

VMware Horizon View Virtual Desktops Stuck in Customizing Status - http://terenceluk.blogspot.com/2015/12/vmware-horizon-view-virtual-desktops.html

The customization of the image appears to work, however it's not reporting the status back that the VM is "Available" to Horizon unless the Win10 VM is logged in, which is strange.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

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techguy129
Expert
Expert

From the 7.6 release notes:

When you use Sysprep to customize Windows 10 linked clones on vCenter Server 6.7, the linked-clone desktops get stuck indefinitely in the customization state during provisioning or recomposing operations.

Workaround: Use vCenter Server 6.5 U2 or earlier. If you must use vCenter Server 6.7, then use the Quickprep customization method.

Release Notes for VMware Horizon 7 version 7.6

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Craig981
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for your reply.  I'm using full virtual machines within my desktop pool and not using composer.  I'm also using the customisation via vSphere instead of sysprep.

I'll try with a Windows 10 sysprep image and see how that goes too.  Any other suggestions welcome!

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MrEHere
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

One thing I found was my VM's would hang in a similar way if there were patches pending install. Mind you I was not running any of the current versions you are (Horizon 7.4, vSphere 6.5, win10 1709) but the net affect was the same. I went back to my gold image and allowed the pending patches to complete (pushed by WSUS) and recomposed and it completed. Probably not your issue but wanted to share what helped me.

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MikleF
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Might want to check the sysprep logs as VMware Customization uploads a custom sysprep file to the VM and starts the sysprep process.

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Craig981
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks to both of your suggestions.  I'll ensure Windows 10 isn't trying to get any further updates + also try using sysprep on Windows 10 (rather than the VMware customization option)

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opie81
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm currently experiencing the same issue.  The sysprep logs show that it is completely correctly and the only error is:

2018-11-14 12:13:42, Error      [0x0f0073] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:Not running DLLs; either the machine is in an invalid state or we couldn't update the recorded state, dwRet = 0x1f

2018-11-14 12:13:42, Error                 SYSPRP WinMain:Hit failure while processing sysprep re-specialize internal providers; hr = 0x8007001f

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