Issue with Sysprep'd Image - Could not process the unattend file

[Guest Petrucci914]

Hello Everyone,

Let me provide some background information on our environment and my process for imaging currently. We will be moving to SCCM soon so a lot of this will be a moot point but I do have to get some stuff deployed now.

We are currently utilizing Altiris 6.9 SP5, but basically I have it just launching our WinPE Environment and run the needed scripts.

1. I do a Diskpart to whack all partitions and disks, and then I do a scripted install of Windows 7 x64 w/ SP1 to my reference machine

2. I do the Windows Updates, Join it to our domain, install all our needed apps, enable the Local Administrator Account, and log into the machine with the Local Admin account.

3. I then Sysprep it using an unattend file that simply contains the 'Copy Profile' Settings (Sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown unattend:file.xml)

4. I then capture the image in the WIM Format. Everything is fine from here.

5. I then go to push out the image with another unattend file that I have used successfully on other machines before but I get a

"Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize]. The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied. The error was detected while processing settings for component [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup].

Now, I have used this answer file just fine before but I am having issues with it on this hardware. I thought it was maybe because of the Unattend file with 'Copy Profile' on it was left on the WIM, so I mounted the WIM, removed that unattend file, and tried pushing the image again........same error.

 

What is happening??

 

Continue reading...