Strange FBReseal Behavior?

[Desi Richards]

I set the reseal phase to 0 in Target Designer System Cloning Tool
component's advanced properties, so that I can tweak the image prior
to cloning it.

FBA ran successfully, and I tweaked the image to my liking.

When all was complete, I had:
- Video drivers installed & working
- resolution set to 1024x768x32bpp
- MSMQ components installed and running
- Various other settings modified

I ran fbreseal from a command prompt, and the system stated that it
had been resealed and then rebooted. When it shut down, I made two
Ghost clones of the master compact flash module. One copy was
installed into each of two target machines, and they were rebooted.
The master compact flash module was put in a desk drawer for
safekeeping.

One of the machines was the one that the master image was created on.
This machine booted quickly, had the correct video resolution and
driver, and behaved as though it had never been resealed.

The other machine booted much more slowly, paused for long times with
just a blank desktop and at the "Windows Settings" dialog boxes, and
looked as though it was generating unique SIDs, etc.

This second machine, however, came up in 640x480 mode, and the "Add
New Hardware" wizard popped up, asking for the video drivers. I
browsed for the drivers, but they had been removed from the system! I
had to reload the driver from an external disk just to get the video
drivers to run.

On both targets, the MSMQ service was not running, either.

Most of my other changes were in place, so I know that the image was
the correct one. But some of these things puzzled me - Are they
supposed to occur?

Desi Richards

 

[Doug Hoeffel]

Desi:

Are you building your image with QFE 810144? If not I would add it. Also,
you might want to look into the -keepall switch.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810144&Product=WinXP

HTH
.... Doug

 

[Desi Richards]

Doug - I am now using QFE 810144 and the -keepall switch, but I still
have an issue:

When the cloned image is booted on an identical system (I even put the
master CF module back into the original hardware set), the MSDTC
service is "Marked for deletion". This causes a number of services to
fail, notably MSMQ.

It appears that the "fbreseal -keepall" is still stepping on something
that causes the MSDTC service to fail on the next boot. Could this be
a bug in fbreseal?

To resolve it, I have to do the following:

1. Using the Services applet (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools
-> Services), shut down the "Distributed Transaction Coordinator"
service if it is running.

2. Close the Services applet and run "C:\WINDOWS\System32\msdtc
-install".

3. Reopen the Services applet and change the startup type to
"Automatic"

4. Reboot the machine.

When I do all of this on the target, MSDTC and MSMQ now start and run
as expected!

~Desi

 

[Doug Hoeffel]

Desi:

Obviously you must of read this thread:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...DTC%20fbreseal&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&sa=N&tab=wg

So, it seems that this MSDTC issue (which causes the MSMQ issue) is your
last issue.

What I don't understand, even when I was NG'ing with Mark V., is why I don't
see this issue. I have never seen this issue and I deploy IIS. There must
be some fundamental difference in our images. My image is fairly large as I
use Explorer Shell, Winlogon, full networking, etc. The MSDTC service on my
box is set for manual start. This service doesn't run until I start my
web-based tool. I don't think I have ever seen a MSDTC error.

Can you provide more detail to what is in your image?

HTH... Doug

 

[Desi Richards]

I have a "Kitchen Sink" sort of image for now... 242 MB compressed and
350 MB uncompressed. It runs on a 1 GB CF with 1GB RAM.

MS .NET Framework 1.1 (w/QFE)
WinLogon
Domain membership
IIS
MSMQ
Admin Tools
XP UI
NTFS
EWF w/RAM overlay (Disabled at first run)

I boot the target and get the logon screen, type Administrator for the
username and a blank pw. Windows logs in and creates the desktop for
me. If I start the "Services" applet in control panel, I don't even
see the MSDTC service listed (Distributed Transaction Coordinator).
The eventlog shows several errors, but the MSMQ entry says "MSMQ:
MSDTC" or something like that, which is what led me to the culprit.
None of the errors in the eventlog have description strings associated
with them (Separate issue? What component do I need there? Obviously
some registry entries are missing)

Another interesting thing is that the Start menu for "Administrative
Tools" doesn't show up under this user, even though it is listed under
the "All Users" section of Documents & Settings. I think that I read
about troubles in this area somewhere else - I'll research it
separately.

 

[Doug Hoeffel]

Desi:

The eventlog shows several errors, but the MSMQ entry says "MSMQ:
MSDTC" or something like that, which is what led me to the culprit.
None of the errors in the eventlog have description strings associated
with them (Separate issue? What component do I need there? Obviously
some registry entries are missing)

Sounds like you are missing registry keys... look at a XP Pro box in the
following areas for MSDTC, IIS etc. and see whats missing on your XPe box:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\System\
and
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Application\

This should get you more detailed error messages in the event log.

HTH... Doug