Sysprep resetting my personal settings in IE, WMP, etc

[Saucer Man]

I created an image and launched Windows Media Player, IE7, etc. to run their
intital setups. Sysprep is run on the image with the
switches -mini -reseal - pnp. Afterwards, A Windows Media Player icon is
placed on the desktop and when I launch it, ,I have to go through all the
initial setup options again. The same thing with IE. I notice when I log
on for the first time, I see a "setting up personal settings" dialog box in
the upper left hand corner. I am using XP Pro SP2. Is there a way I can
prevent this from happining?

 

[Hunter01]

I created an image and launched Windows Media Player, IE7, etc. to run their
intital setups. Sysprep is run on the image with the
switches -mini -reseal - pnp. Afterwards, A Windows Media Player icon is
placed on the desktop and when I launch it, ,I have to go through all the
initial setup options again. The same thing with IE. I notice when I log
on for the first time, I see a "setting up personal settings" dialog box in
the upper left hand corner. I am using XP Pro SP2. Is there a way I can
prevent this from happining?

Sysprep's behaviour since SP2 is regardless of what you set in the
"default user" profile it'll be overwritten with the local Administrator
profile at time of sysprep, so any preconfig you want to do you want to
do under the local administrator. That being said I think some of that
shit it knocks back to default anyway, stuff like the firewall and so on
from memory. We've just got a bunch of post-image jobs to sort that
crap, but I honestly can't remember what Microsoft in their infinite
wisdom refuse to let us customise, it's all too long ago we developed
that stuff.

 

[Saucer Man]

Yes. I have made all my customizations to the Local Administrator account.
Still, after sysprep, even if I sign on as local administrator, those
personalized settings get reconfigured.

Thanks.

 

[Hunter01]

If you want to chuck us a list of the customisations that are being
mangled by sysprep I can let you know what we've done to address them,
we use commandlines.txt to sort some of the issues encountered in
respect to issues that need to be resolved prior to the system's first
full startup, and use Altiris to deploy any other config changes, but
anything we're doing with Altiris you'll also be able to do in the
GUIRunOnce section of the sysprep.inf presumably, we don't use this as
Altiris is much nicer, but from memory it doesn't require a login to
kickstart so should do the trick.

Out of curiousity why are you using Sysprep? If it is purely for machine
name/SID changing then you're using a bazooka where a hammer would
suffice, sysprep is highly intrusive and mangles things quite nicely. It
is the ultimate solution for hardware independant imaging with XP, and
if that's what you're using it for then well worth the added effort, but
if you're doing it purely to change SIDs/PCNames and still use seperate
images for different hardware as many places do you'd be much better off
just imaging and using a tool like Newsid to make the mods you need, and
all your customisations will stay intact perfectly.

Alternatively if you got some money floating around you could look at
virtualising your desktops with VMWare and just picking up a whole heap
of cheap thin clients. We're only virtualising our servers at this
point, but the virtualised desktop solution looks magic from a
presentation we recently went to, probly trial it further down the track
when we've recovered from the outlay for getting the gear for server
virtualisation, but if it's half of what it promises to be it'd
eliminate all the probs we're seeing with different hardware and a whole
heap of other shit all in one blow, but potentially bandwidth would
become a much bigger issue, but that's all another story....

 

[JeffR]

Hi,

There is a hotfix that will prevent windows from overwriting the default
user profile with the local administrator profile at time of sysprep. I
pulled out most of my hair before discovering this hotfix.

Go to the following KB article.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887816/en-us

JeffR

 

[Saucer Man]

I tried this hotfix but it doesn't help. The problem happens on the local
administrator account also. I don't even have to sign on as a new user.

If I configure everything the way I want it, (IE, Windows Media Player, OE),
in my Administrator account and then run sysprep, the next time I log on as
Administrator I have to go through the intitial configuration setup screens
in IE, Windows Media Player, etc. Also, my selection to use ClearType to
smooth edges of screen fonts is gone (the checkbox is unchecked).

Thanks.

 

[Saucer Man]

Hi Hunter.

We are using the Universal Image Utility from Binary Research. It requires
Sysprep unfortunately. We do not have a big budget here and just about all
of our machines are different.

Here is what Sysprep is mangling...

1) It puts a Windows Media Player icon on the desktop and quick launch
toolbar.
2) It resets Windows Media Player. The first time a new user(or
administrator) logs on and they open WMP, they have to go through the
initial setup.
3) It resets Internet Explorer 7. The first time a new user(or
administrator) logs on and they open IE, they have to go through the intial
setup.

That's about the worst of them. If you have a solution for these issues
that would be great.

Thanks.

 

[Hunter01]

If it requires sysprep I'm assuming you've got a one image fits all
hardware solution, and that would make it well worthwhile. We found the
biggest problems were with the HAL when sorting our own "universal"
image, that took a lot of tinkering but we finally got it right, and it
was worth the effort in the end. I've not played with the Universal
Image Utility, but have heard good things about it.

Everything you've mentioned is shit we've cleaned up so there is a
solution, but I'm a tad maggotted at the moment so going to avoid
jumping in to take a look tonight, but will have a look a bit later in
the weekend and chuck what we've done to fix it at you. Weird thing is I
know we have none of the problems listed below, but I thought we had
actually resolved some of it by clearing it in the local administrator
profile prior to imaging, but I could be wrong. Will have a look at our
post-image stuff either tomorrow or Sunday and get back to you.

 

[Saucer Man]

Thanks Hunter!

If it requires sysprep I'm assuming you've got a one image fits all
hardware solution, and that would make it well worthwhile. We found the
biggest problems were with the HAL when sorting our own "universal" image,
that took a lot of tinkering but we finally got it right, and it was worth
the effort in the end. I've not played with the Universal Image Utility,
but have heard good things about it.

Everything you've mentioned is shit we've cleaned up so there is a
solution, but I'm a tad maggotted at the moment so going to avoid jumping
in to take a look tonight, but will have a look a bit later in the weekend
and chuck what we've done to fix it at you. Weird thing is I know we have
none of the problems listed below, but I thought we had actually resolved
some of it by clearing it in the local administrator profile prior to
imaging, but I could be wrong. Will have a look at our post-image stuff
either tomorrow or Sunday and get back to you.