this should be easy............but is driving me mad
Using vCenter 5.1 and ESXi 5.1
Windows 2008R2 SP1 absolute basic install, next next etc
VM Shell is all correct as per Windows 2008R2 etc
Install latest VMTools
Activate via our internal KMS (does it need to be activated?)
Shutdown
Convert to Template
Deploy using a Guest Customisation, XYZ for Name and Org, Use VM Name, Product Key for our Org, a password that meets the default policy (Password1), GMT, no run once, Ttpical for network, leave as WORKGROUP, generate new SID.......
spins up quick enough, reboots after couple of seconds, sysprep kicks in, then....at the applying system settings get the dreaded error
Windows could not parse or process the unattended answer file for pass [specialize] error detected while proecessing [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup]
I have tried with no unattend.xml in the template
and with this sample one in C:\Windows\Panther
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
<settings pass="specialize" wasPassProcessed="true">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<RegisteredOrganization>XYZ</RegisteredOrganization>
<RegisteredOwner>XYZ</RegisteredOwner>
<CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile>
</component>
</settings>
<cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:f:/sources/install.wim#Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERSTANDARD" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi"></cpi:offlineImage>
</unattend>
I can't get in to the VM now to check logs as it goes round in circles and says couldn't complete.......
I must be missing something obvious, this shouldn't be that difficult should it?
Has anyone got this working?
