Error when Sysprep attempts to run

[M. Hale]

Greetings,

The school division that I work for produces "base" images for the
hardware configurations that we use. The one site support folks are
supposed to take the base image, add anything that is site specific and
then deploy the new image out to the machines at the site. The base
image that is provided to us has sysprep on it. This image is for a
Dell Latitude D600 laptop. It has Windows XP SP2.

After I have customized the base image and put sysprep on it again, I
get an error about sysprep not being able to change the administrator
password. This happens after the machine reboots and just before the
mini-setup wizard runs. This happens if I use sysrep with a sysprep.inf
file and without.

Other base images from the school system will allow sysprep to be
applied after customizing as above without any problem. This leads me
to believe something is odd in this specific image, but I'm not sure
what.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Grant Robertson]

After I have customized the base image and put sysprep on it again, I
get an error about sysprep not being able to change the administrator
password. This happens after the machine reboots and just before the
mini-setup wizard runs. This happens if I use sysrep with a sysprep.inf
file and without.

Other base images from the school system will allow sysprep to be
applied after customizing as above without any problem. This leads me
to believe something is odd in this specific image, but I'm not sure
what.

I have found that Norton AntiVirus and Norton Internet Security do not
behave properly after being SysPrep'd. I think it has something to do
with Symantec tying it's security or piracy protection to the SID of the
computer. Look for any other product that may make use of the SID for any
reason. This may be your culprit.

 

[Michael Niehaus [MS]]

Sysprep will generate this error if the Administrator password is not blank
in the captured image.

-Michael Niehaus
Senior Consultant
MCS US Centers of Excellence - Deployment AOS
(e-mail address removed)
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[MikeD]

You need to make sure local Admin is blank for the image - and then just
use sysprep to readd a password for that account.

 

[M. Hale]

You need to make sure local Admin is blank for the image - and then just
use sysprep to readd a password for that account.

Perhaps this is a silly question, but how does one set the
Administrator password to be blank? Right now the image that I'm using
has an admin password on it from the central location we get the "base"
image. Can I just change the password and enter nothing for the new
password?

Thanks for everyone's help.

Mike

 

[Grant Robertson]

You need to make sure local Admin is blank for the image - and then just
use sysprep to readd a password for that account.

Can you explain how to just use SysPrep to re-add a password for an
account?