Troubleshooting Windows provisioning issues on VMware

Overview

Troubleshooting a provisioning issue? Here are a couple of VMware guest customization problems that can happen when provisioning a Windows VM. These issues aren't specific to CloudBolt, but this guide will tell you how to recognize them when they pop up during CloudBolt provisioning.

Procedure

Issue #1: "Invalid credentials" as Administrator

Symptom: Scripts fail when run as Administrator after guest configuration (from the Post-Network Configuration step onward). The error message varies between vCenter version, but one variation looks like "msg = 'A general system error occurred: vix error codes = (1, 0).".

Cause: Starting with Windows 7, the Sysprep command run as part of guest customization will disable the Administrator account by default. This causes an "invalid credentials" error when CloudBolt tries to run scripts as Administrator.

Solution: Instruct your template to re-enable the Administrator account after Sysprep with the following steps.

  1. Boot up your template and create a %WINDIR%\Setup\Scripts\ directory.

  2. Inside that directory, create a 

SetupComplete.cmd file.

  1. Add the following contents to that file: 

net user administrator /active:yes

See https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2034622 for more details on this issue.

Issue #2: CloudBolt hangs waiting for a hostname to be reported

Symptom: CloudBolt hangs while waiting for the hostname to be set by guest customization. On the server being provisioned, the Sysprep error log (C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\Panther\setuperr.log) contains a line like:

<DATE> <TIME>, Error SYSPRP Package Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_1.0.1471.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe was installed for a user, but not provisioned for all users. This package will not function properly in the sysprep image.

Cause: The Sysprep command, which happens as part of guest customization, is failing to clean Appx packages and generalize the image.

Solution: Remove the offending package on the template. Follow the steps in the Resolution section of the Microsoft article below.

Additional information

See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2769827/sysprep-fails-after-you-remove-or-update-windows-store-apps-that-include-built-in-windows-images for more details.

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