Windows 8.1 Guest Customization - Disabling the administrator account

[Dunington]

Our Environment has been updated to VCD 5.6.4 and now when our Windows 8.1 VM's go thru guest customization the administrator account is disabled. Looks like guest customization completes but doesn't enable the admin account.

Any one seen this?

[IamTHEvilONE]

I think this is because we call sysprep with the /generalize operand (as well as some others).  In client versions of windows, this will lock/disable the built in administrator account.  Are you generating a new Admin Password during Guest OS Customization (GOSC)?

Maybe you can try using a post customization script like this:

@echo off

if "%1%" == "postcustomization" (

     net user administrator /active:yes

)

I think this should set the account to active afterwards.

Alternatively, you can put a file in the OS to be executed after GOSC is completed.

To create a SetupComplete.cmd file:

1. Create a directory named:
   
   %WINDIR%\Setup\Scripts\
   
   
2. In this directory, create a file named SetupComplete.cmd in a text editor, and enter this line in the file:
   
   net user administrator /active:yes
   
   
3. Save and close the file.

[Dunington]

Good Morning,

Thanks for your help but still no luck. I tried both suggestions. We are doing both generating a new password and rolling the sid.

I have an open case with GSS and have sent the logs.

[IamTHEvilONE]

Yeah, this confirms the reseal parameters passed to sysprep as "/quiet /generalize /oobe /reboot"

So what might be happening, could just be a result of sysprep + settings used ... not saying there isn't a workaround, but the MS URL I provided previously seems to state that this is normal (locking the admin account when using the one parameter).