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dlee2654
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

windows 10 guest customization does not complete

No error messages, I get the typical "Started customization of VM..." but the guest never reboots or goes through a sysprep operation nor does vsphere confirm that customization was successful.  I looked in the guestcust.log and could find nothing to suggest an error or that any part of the customization failed.  Hoping I'm not alone here, this is a plain vanilla install of Windows 10, nothing fancy added or configured.

vSphere Client version 5.5.0 build 3237766

vCenter Server version 5.5.0 build 3142196

VMware ESXi, 5.5.0 build 3568722

VMware tools are current and running

guestcust.log attached.

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14 Replies
john_its
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

You are not alone Smiley Happy

Same situation here.

And to add a bit more, the same thing happens with vcenter and esxi 6u2 (as well as 5.5u3).

Windows 10 PRE November update seems to continue to customization just fine though.

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john_its
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

So,

I installed Windows 10 Professional from the images provided by MS.

The image from July 2015 works fine IF you do not update it. Once it gets the November update, customization no longer works.

The image from April 2016 (version 1511) does not work.

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john_its
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ok, I found out what was causing the sysprep to fail in our situation.

I tried to run sysprep from c:\windows\system32\sysprep .

It showed an error that sysprep could not validate the windows installation.

Checked at the sysprep log, inside the same folder and found out that the twitter app was corrupted.

Once I uninstalled the app sysprep completed successfully.

So i reverted back to my snapshop, run sysprerp again just to make sure that it was the same error and the culprit was the same application. I removed the application, powered off the VM and make a couple of clones of it. It worked as expected.

I tested this a couple of times, by reinstalling Win10 from scratch and every time that sysprep was failing was because a UWP app was corrupted or something. Each time and a defferent app.

I hope it will help you resolve your issue as well

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pengzhencao
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Have you checked the activation state for the windows 10?

Some times customization will fail if windows is not activated, especially you customize a VM to join a domain.

From the guestcust logs in the first post, I can see customization is terminated some where when it was running with MS's sysprep.

Could  you post the logs in "C:\Winodws\Panther" so that I could help you for better debugging?

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dlee2654
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

This appears to have resolved itself since my first complaint.  I have to assume its because all the hosts have been upgraded to ESXi 5.5 build 4179633 and subsequent upgrade of VMware tools on the template guest vm.

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balazs_lovas
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

Same issue here, guest OS cust fails.

I tried to run sysprep manually on the VM only to find that the built-in sysprep fails miserably.

The new sysprep feature in win10 (generalization) seems to unable to complete on the box. After a short google it is clear that the issue is widespread. Some say that if you have a local user that could cripple sysprep, others blame the Tile Data Service.

Try all options/workarounds but i still cannot make this stupid system to generate a proper sysprep state.

Also note that win10 is supported on vsphere6u1, anything below is not supported.

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deepchandra040
Contributor
Contributor

i am also facing same type of problem, i have created windows 10 MDT image and have create the clone by using that. now i have created the template but i am adding template and creating new machines its getting failed with protocol failure error. i have cross checked in v-centre vms was creating but somehow domain is not joining in these machines. can anyone help?

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VDIMega
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm getting the following in c:\windows\system32\sysprep\panther\setuperr.log:

2016-11-16 17:45:18, Error                 SYSPRP setupdigetclassdevs failed with error 0
2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error                 SYSPRP setupdigetclassdevs failed with error 0
2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error                 SYSPRP Failed to remove staged package Windows.ContactSupport_10.0.14393.0_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy: 0x80070002.
[gle=0x00000002]
2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error                 SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80070002.

2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error                 SYSPRP Exit code of RemoveAllApps thread was 0x2.

2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error                 SYSPRP Failed to remove all apps: 0x80070002.

2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error      [0x0f0082] SYSPRP ActionPlatform::LaunchModule: Failure occurred while executing 'SysprepGeneralize' from C:\Windows\System32\AppxSysprep.dll; dwRet = 0x2
2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error                 SYSPRP ActionPlatform::ExecuteAction: Error in executing action; dwRet = 0x2
2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error                 SYSPRP ActionPlatform::ExecuteActionList: Error in execute actions; dwRet = 0x2
2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error                 SYSPRP SysprepSession::Execute: Error in executing actions from C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\ActionFiles\Generalize.xml; dwRet = 0x2
2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error                 SYSPRP RunPlatformActions:Failed while executing SysprepSession actions; dwRet = 0x2
2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error      [0x0f0070] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:An error occurred while running registry sysprep DLLs, halting sysprep execution. dwRet = 0x2
2017-01-23 16:01:47, Error      [0x0f00a8] SYSPRP WinMain:Hit failure while processing sysprep generalize internal providers; hr = 0x80070002

Windows.ContactSupport cannot be removed because its part of the OS supposedly.  Has anyone successfully removed it?

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VDIMega
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

OK so the ContactSupport app appears to only have been partially removed at some point from this image, but it still appeared if I ran "get-appxpackage -online".  The entry was still in the staterepository-machine database.  This is the procedure I followed to remove it from there:

 

    1. Make a working copy of “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository\StateRepository-Machine.srd”
    2. Make a backup copy of “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository\StateRepository-Machine.srd”
    3. Open it with “DB Browser for SQLite x64” (https://nightlies.sqlitebrowser.org/win64/)
    4. Browse the “Packages” table and delete the row mentioning “ContactSupport”
    5. Take ownership of C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository” (ignore the errors about failed ownership changes for files inside)
    6. Run ‘tasklist /svc /fi "services eq StateRepository"’ and write down the PID of the staterepository service
    7. Kill the state repository service by running ‘taskkill /pid <pid from step d> /f’
    8. Take ownership of “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository\StateRepository-Machine.srd”
    9. Replace “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository\StateRepository-Machine.srd” with the copied srd file you modified.
      1. If you get a warning that the file is in use, then the state repository service probably started again!  Repeat steps f-g and i (skip h) quickly!

    10. If you run get-appxpackage –online you should get a bunch of apps, but none of them should say *ContactSupport*

  

After this, i was able to successfully sysprep the machine!

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ChristopheB31
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you for the tip ! It solved my sysprep issue on W10 1607 Smiley Wink

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smeier01
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

i'm having the same issue with a fresh install off the latest Windows 10 iso's from Microsoft (de_windows_10_enterprise_version_1703_updated_march_2017).

Last entries in the guestcust.log:

[2017-05-04T10:53:41:                              :  DEBUG] Got VMX response 'connected'

[2017-05-04T10:53:41:        GuestCustUtil:  DEBUG] Status marker file C:/Windows/.post-gc-status doesn't exist

[2017-05-04T10:53:41:                              :   INFO] The network interfaces are connected on 1 second

[2017-05-04T10:53:41:                              :   INFO] GuestCustUtil exiting.

If i start sysprep manually, everything seems to run just fine.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

greetings from switzerland

UPDATE: It seems like the Problem only occures on templates where Windows updates were applied. Deploying an unpatched 1703 Image works fine. Can anyone confirm this?

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JimBerry
Contributor
Contributor

I've been fighting this for several days.  It looks like my issue was the user I created when I installed the OS.  I finally enabled the administrator, logged in as that administrator and then deleted the profile of the original user.  After deployment, the customization finally ran.  Administrator was disabled and the original admin user still existed.  It had to set up a new profile when I logged in but it all worked.  I believe this is related to the default store apps.

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Stuart_Jackson
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks that was the trick, except add one more thing. Delete the local user profile AND account. Works like a charm after that.

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iamxCPx
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I tried everything that you guys suggested here with no luck but then this VMware Knowledge Base fixed it for me.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1018378

We are still using ESXi 5.5 with Win10 Version 1709 Build 16299.19.

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