Win 2019 customization fails

[scogen]

My Windows 2019 template (10.0.7763.504) had been working fine.  Then I patched vSphere and now there's issues.

If I deploy the template using a customization spec to ESXi 6.7 13644319 or ESXi 6.5 13635690, things are normal.

If I deploy the same template and same custom spec to an older 6.0 cluster 13635687,  the image reboots after the customization starts, then hangs at the windows logo with the spinning dots.

I attached the disk to another VM and found the setupact logs repeating these messages over and over.

2019-05-28 14:13:30, Info	SYSPRP SPPNP: Status: Total = 0, Complete = 0, Progress = 0% (0%)
2019-05-28 14:13:30, Info	SYSPRP SPPNP: Status worker: Waiting for device installation to start...
2019-05-28 14:13:31, Info	SYSPRP SPPNP: Status: Starting...

The template has the latest VMtools and is on HW version 11.  I need to deploy to this cluster, but the hardware doesn't support 6.5. Any ideas ?

[scogen · Accepted solution]

When we rebuild a 2019 template on 6.5+ and deploy to 6.0, sysprep hangs.

So we rebuilt a 2019 template using the same procedures on 6.0 and sysprep does not hang when deploying to 6.5, 6.7, or 6.0.

It doesn't make sense, but it works.