VMware Horizon Community
Tallgntlmn1
Contributor
Contributor

Windows 10 failing at customizing

Have a View environment on 6.1.1 on ESXi 6.0 and am trying to build a Windows 10 pool to see if performance is decent.  It's not that great in a console.  I imagine there are no optimization scripts yet for Win 10, but eagerly awaiting such things. 

I have the base image built and all looks fine there.  When I go to build the pool (floating, linked clones), the machines get built and go through power on and then they hang at customizing.  It looks like the machines are blue screening for some reason and I can't figure out how to check that. 

Anyone else seen this kind of behavior?  Do I need my ESX guys to update the hosts beyond the 6.0 that was release in March? What about vCenter?  I don't see any newer View components beyond the 6/4/15 release and that is the release I am running on all View components. 

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Tallgntlmn1
Contributor
Contributor

I may have the answer for the blue screening/freezing on customizing.  I had EFI set instead of BIOS.  When I switched them, the pool completed. 

With that said, I consider the initial question resolved but still wonder about optimization scripts and what not.  I have Win 10 on ESXi 6 with flash storage and the performance is kind of lousy. 

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gregorcy
Contributor
Contributor

Are you using quickprep or sysprep.  I can create a pool, all the machines are created but then it looks like sysprep is not run.  They all have the same name.  They just hang there and never reboot and customize.

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Tallgntlmn1
Contributor
Contributor

I'm using Quickprep on my pools.  I think another thing that may have been happening to me is our KMS servers were not able to activate Windows 10 and that may have had them hanging on customizing.  I haven't seen what you speak of with duplicate names though.  That part works correct for me. 

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MattDav
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yes, Windows 10 (currently) requires Windows Server 2012 R2 KMS servers, with the new Hotfix, and the Windows 10 KMS key registered.

Supposedly there is a patch coming for Server 2008 R2 but it's not out yet.  So migrate your KMS server to 2012 R2, or wait for the Hotfix.

You can modify the registry on your template to enable MAK activation instead, if your VM's have access to the internet on boot.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102655...

If you want to run non-activated, you can also disable activation in that same KB.

If you attempt to provision a pool without one of the above, customization will fail (Error:)

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HBUsysadm
Contributor
Contributor

I'm having a similar issue.

It's not BSOD'ing but.

Our environment is ESXi 5.5u3 build 4179633 with vCenter 5.5u3d and View 6.2.

From what I've read windows 10 is supported on these.

I followed the following for creating the gold image (Since it's been awhile since the initial creating of the win7 gold)

http://ituda.com/vmware-horizon-view-windows-10-golden-image-creation/

And tried using the same customization specification as was used on the win7 pools, but the result is that it throws an error about parsing the specification file.

It is UEFI booting and I'd like to keep it that way, All of the win7 VDI desktops are UEFI booting and are fine.

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szilagyic
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

We had the same issues and after upgrading to Horizon 7 this was fixed and guest customization now works for Windows 10.  I suspect there's some issue with Horizon 6 and Windows 10.

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