Page 1 of 4 - Where to download a legal copy of Windows 7 Home Premium OEM.iso. Preparation Guide Before Posting Malware Issues in MRL Forum 7 SP1, Microsoft has also updated the Windows 7 DVD media ISO image distributed. I want to downgrade to a Windows 7. Professional 32 bits. Such as ImgBurn to burn the.

En_windows_7_professional_x86_dvd.iso Windows 7 Professional Download Free Full Version 32 & 64 bit Review Windows 7 Professional being a major release from the Microsoft Windows has been made available by the Microsoft in Six different editions ( Starter, Home basic, Enterprise, Home premium, Professional and Ultimate) These all are widely used and made available at retailers. So if you are in need to optimize PC speed and getting the best performance you must be downloading the windows 7 Professional free full version operating system. Key Features of Windows 7 Windows 7 Professional that has enhanced the movies and functionality of photo slide show which helps you enjoy playing HD movies on window media center. Image effects are known to be amazing and intriguing also have an incomparable desktop navigation. Nonetheless, the significant feature of windows 7 is its firewall that has become more than ever secure and outbound firewall rules. Windows 7 widgets are one of the key features in this version; however, a strong feature of upgrading is available and the new windows 10 allows you to directly update from windows 7 to the latest version as well as to an new world of Microsoft Windows 8.

How To Install Windows 7 From ISO Image After you successfully downloaded windows 7 ISO file. Save it on your PC. Follow the tutorial about.

The steps to install windows 7 are simple and easy. Comment here if you face any issues during windows 7 Pro ISO download or installation. We at Softlay.net recommend this Spyware or Virus free and secure Windows 7 Professional Full Version Free Download.

Operating System Requirements • Processor: 1 GHz or faster • Memory: 1GB • Hard disk space: 15GB available • Video card: 1366 × 768 screen resolution; DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM driver • Connectivity: Internet access (fees may apply) Microsoft account required for some features. Watching DVDs requires separate playback software. I have a good version of Windows 7 professional 32 bit DVD on order but I want to install it before the official disk arrives I already have the Activation Key all I need is the disk. I have downloaded versions of it prior to this and installed on my Virtual Machine only to find the versions I downloaded had rootkit trojans on them and thus were unusable.

Does the 32 bit version you have for download have rootkits on it as well? AVG antivirus detected them in the 2 instances before. These were not downloaded from your site but from 2 different web sites also saying their ISO’s were virus free which they weren’t •. Guys the download speed depends on your internet connection, these files are Image Files and are huge, some of them are 3GB and it will take a while for them to download them, also they do not come with a Windows Key, we have to assume that you have your own key or that you had purchase the key, example, if you have windows 7 pro, you want to download windows 7 pro, reinstall windows, and them put the Windows Key that came with your machine there, if you run into any issues contact Microsoft and let them know this is the same PC with the Same Key you are just installing the OS.

You can’t install windows 7 pro on a Windows 7 home basic and put the Windows 7 Home Basic Key that your computer came with, it will never work, unless you have windows 7 pro key from somewhere else. My Example: I had a Windows 7 64 bit OEM Home Premium. Downloaded the Windows 7 pro 64 bit ISO and installed it on my machine, it did not work because my key is for Home Premium, so i got a Windows 7 pro 64 bit product key i found;) and wala!!! Nice post, Windows 7 pro is the most recommended OS to do almost all work, So I recommend you to activate your existing OS being purchased its license code from ODosta Store Which is distributing license for all types of Microsoft Products with good customer support. I personally used it and have a good experience.

Upgrading your OS to windows 10 can create some technical issues, So I recommend you to have clean installation of Windows 7 windows 8 or Windows 10 and activate it via legal license.

It is after the initial phase right after the first restart. Windows says 'Starting' (with the fuzzy icon) Then in the blue sunlit background setup is updating registry settings setup is starting services then error I'm past the checklist. I'm looking at the setupact.log file and it says it has completed phase 2.but not sure exactly whats after phase 2 or where to find phase 3. I've tried re-installing everything but the same issue happens. The part I'm at does allow me to do the Shift+F10 to bring up the cmd window.

I've tried booting with every available option and they all fail at this point. I was looking for the boot log to see if that had any insight, but I can't even find the file (so either I'm looking in the wrong spot or it isn't being created.i'm leaning toward the first option) The hard drive that I'm using did contain an older OS (2K, I think), but I did pick the option to do a clean install so I didn't expect that to cause an issue. I'm getting the same error on a new RC upgrade install.

It says 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' And, upon restart, returns this same message over and over. I've installed W7B on a lesser powered laptop and everything is running great and fast. This install is on a faster desktop and is W7RC1. Compatibility checker ran perfectly.

Not willing to do a clean install - don't have that kind of time to donate to MS. If anyone has any ideas on how they got past this, I'd appreciate it. Note to MS: This is a pretty poor way to handle an error condition, assuming that is the issue. My experience has been similar to as TJude's. Installation would proceed to the final configuration when I'd get stuck in an endless reboot cycle of a crash and reboot during service configuration followed by the 'Windows did not start properly' option screen.

If I attempt to start in Safe Mode I'm given a screen informing my that setup cannot continue in Safe Mode and I must reboot (which of course puts me back into the reboot loop). This happens with both x86 and x64 version of W7RC1. I've tried the installation as a clean install, both on a partition on my primary drive and on a separate dedicated drive.

Also tried it as an in-place upgrade to Vista Ultimate, same issues. The system passes the Windows 7 system compatibility test with flying colours. It's not exactly confidence inspiring if the 'latest and greatest' is unable to install on 1 year old hardware that MS's own compatibilty test says is more than sufficient. Hardware: Asus P5N-EM HMDI mobo Intel E8400 Core2 Duo 3.0ghz proc 4gb DDR2 Corsair PC-6400 ram 500gb 7200.11 Seagate SATA (primary drive, installing onto 100gb partition) 80gb Seagate PATA (tried as dedicated drive for Win7) 2x Samsung SH-223F dvd-burner. I'm having the same problem.

Completely fresh install on new Sata Hdd. Formatted drive and did custom install. Gets to the same error noted in previous posts. Wiped drive and did anothe completely fresh install.

Stopped again at the same place. Until I see a workaround or fix for this, I won't be doing another install. Not a very good start when you can't get past first base.:( ASUS P5WD2-E INTEL Pentium D 3.2Ghz cpu 2GB PC2-4300 Ram 500Gb Hitachi Deskstar 7200rpm drive (install to complete drive) ATI Radeon X1800 512MB Video LG SuperMulti DVD Burner.

Try this that worked for me. Put install disk in CD drive and reboot. Do not tell the bios to boot from the CD. After I did this (accidentally) the windows opening screen came up with the 2 choices: Run Windows or repair your computer.

I chose run and it has been working fine ever since. I have no idea why. Hank Thanks for that thought, but I am not asking it to boot from the CD anyway - I simply put the install DVD in the drive and it auto-launches. I will try booting from that DVD, a variant of your post, and will post back with results. As I suspected - that didn't work! Microsoft needs to fix this. I was pretty excited about the beta, but this RC1 has blown my confidence.

I had the same problem. Looking through the posts there seems to be a common factor: pre-formatted drives. Since there's not much on a newly formatted disk, I'm guessing the problem is something to do with ownership/permissions on either System Volume Information or the Recycle Bin.

I was setting up a dual boot system and wanted to maintain drive letter consistency. The solution was to create the partition, assign a drive letter but NOT to format the partition. Windows Seven was quite happy to accept this unformatted partition and kept the assigned drive letter.

I, too, experienced this problem while attempting to apply a WIM image that I prepared with Sysprep and captured with IMAGEX. The source and target hardware were considerably different, but I don't believe that to be a factor here. Others have noted that this problem occurs with 'clean' installations that are performed directly from a Windows 7 RC1 DVD. It is worth noting that there is another thread that describes the problem (in more detail, but without resolution) at the following URL: I am a seasoned system-builder and an enterprise deployment professional. As such, I have extensive experience with Microsoft OS deployments and the related tools, e.g., Sysprep, imagex, diskpart, MDT, etc. That said, I still cannot determine why setup is failing in this manner. As has been noted in this thread and others, the problem seems to occur when the target hard disk (on which Windows is to be installed) is formatted using a third-party tool (i.e., a tool other than the facility provided during Windows 7 setup).

As I shall demonstrate, this is not necessarily the case. Nonetheless, users have been able to work around this problem by reformatting the target disk (using the Advanced ->Format option) during Windows Setup.

This is not an acceptable workaround/solution, for several reasons, not least of which are the following: 1.) This solution requires customers to avoid the use of third-party disk management tools, such as Paragon Partition Manager, Partition Magic, etc. I am hesitant to suggest that Microsoft is intentionally preventing the use of third-party tools, but such a suggestion is evidenced by a) the complete lack of meaningful diagnostic information in the setup logs, and b) the complete lack of an official response to this issue. One might postulate that this 'feature' was deliberately included with the pre-RTM versions of Windows 7, and if that is true, Microsoft has done a major disservice to its enterprise customers who are scrambling to prepare for Windows 7 deployments. 2.) This problem prevents the restoration of backups that are created using third-party tools. Products such as Acronis TrueImage, Norton Ghost, etc., cannot be used to create and restore backups of system disks. In other words, the only way to perform a full system backup in Windows 7 may be to use the Microsoft-provided tool (Control Panel ->System and Security ->Backup and Restore ->Create a System Image). In order to determine whether or not this problem occurs as a result of using third-party disk formatting tools, I decided to try it 'the Microsoft way'.

I prepared the hard disk using DISKPART (which is the very utility that Setup uses), as follows: >select disk 0 >clean >create partition primary >format fs=ntfs quick >active I then booted the computer into Windows PE 3.0 with the Sysprepped volume mounted to D: and copied all of the files on D: to the freshly-formatted C: drive: >xcopy D: C: /e/c/i/f/h/r/y/k/o/x After rebooting, Setup begins and. THE SAME ERROR occurs! So, this issue (assuming it only has one root cause) is not directly related to the hard disk partitioning strategy. Rather, this issue is related to SIDs, ACLs, or some other file-level check that is being performed during Setup. Microsoft, you owe us a response on this issue. Don't make us go through our Enterprise Support channels, lest I be forced to tell our organization's CIO that Windows 7 is not ready for enterprise deployment and to forgo a massive volume license purchase come October. Has anyone found a solution to this issue yet?

I have the same issue when install wim files from/to many different types of laptops. I have done some testing and found that the following configs restore without issue when adding the software in piece by piece, but when building the whole image and then capturing it, the 1st boot will fail. I ran sysprep with OOBE and Generalize between each step until I ran into the activation issue at the 3rd try. Clean Windows 7 Enterprise - Restore Successful Windows 7 with all drivers and patches - Restore Successful Windows 7 with Office 2007 Pro Plus - Restore Successful Windows 7 with Office 2007 Pro Plus, Adobe Acrobat Read, Flash Player, Shockwave Player and all Office 2007 patches - Restore Successful My last successful image size was 11,221MB.

Update - I did resolve this issue, by determining that the problem was from a particular piece of software installed like some other posts here. The issue in my case was a printer driver for the OCE im4510 and 4511. After removing the drivers from my image before sysprep, my restore is now working. I was successful but I had to leave Norton Antivirus and Cisco Clean Access agent out of the build. I'M NOT SURE IF THAT FIXED IT.

But eventually I was able to apply an image. I also had to eliminate Crystal Reports Run time software. I installed these applications AFTER the OS was installed. Cisco Clean Access will not work on my Windows 7 RC build.

Keeps prompting for credentials. Just try to eliminate pieces of software and build, capture, and apply. It's painful but it might lead to a good build. We've run into the same problem in building Win 7 images for our agency. An updated vanilla image will unpack just fine. However, when we start to add in the software for our images we hit this problem. I've gone through each of the software packages one by one, and it appears that for us the unpacking phase gets hung up only after the Citrix XenApp web client (either versions 10.2 or 11.0) gets installed.

Of course there is nothing in the sysprep error logs to indicate any problem - if there are, the errors are far too vague to do any sort of troubleshooting with. It would be nice to have more specific information included to help pinpoint these things. Judging by this, I would assume that this is error is being caused by various software packages - I doubt everyone else is installing the Citrix XenApp web client, however it appears to be one piece of software that does not make Sysprep happy. Why Sysprep is getting caught up on these software packages is beyond me, though. 'It seems that killing the “wmpnetwk.exe” before sysprepping lets the sysprep process run smoothly.:)' Yes, but wmpnetwk.exe is not running on Enterprise by default.

All Media Player services in Windows 7 Enterprise are set to 'Manual', and in the processes list, thye never show up. I have a FULLY configurated Windows 7 Enterprise installation, which gives me the same error as in the first post: '.could not finish configuring.' However, I have created a new installation, simply based on a clean Windows 7 Enterprise installatation with NO changes en NO updates nothing, and this one works with sysprep! During boot it says 'Starting services' and then the GUI appears. Everything works fine. Please keep in mind that we are testing on ONE system, same hardware. We use /shutdown, so the system shuts down, and then we simply turn it on again.:) Conslusion: is seems that somewhere along the way installing our system, the sysprep method doesn't work anymore.

This could be Updates, installed software, installed services etc. I'm currently removing all the software components and services, just until the sysprep works. ->this is what keeps me going, because with a clean installation, sysprep works! Have any of you tried sysprep on a bare install first, then build with 3rd party apps to rule out 3rd party software being the actual problem, as it seems only speculation at the moment and not actually resolving the issue.

This error has also happen with OEM builds of Windows Vista that we have shipped and that was found to be a failed imageX and not the sysprep. Personally i think its a driver initialising on setup thats the problem, hense why x64 bit works and x86 has problems.

As a side note, isnt the Admin account enbedded in the OS and set to Disabled by default, so it cannot be removed! Our Test case: Windows 7 Enterprise x86, out of the box installatation: sysprep works.

Windows 7 Enterprise x86, fully installed (includes Office 2007 etc, but NO Citrix stuff): sysprep could not finish configuring. Windows 7 Enterprise x86, fully installed ->removed ALL software and extra services: sysprep could not finish configuring. So, if we uninstall ALL software, it still doesn't work. Something in Windows changed along the way, but the error remains after uninstalling everything. When the error appeard, you can use Shift+F10 to open cmd. I used services.msc to see what's started etc.

Some services were stared, but the 'Remote Desktop Services UserMode Port Redirector' was hanging at 'Stating.' I could simply start all the other services without any problems, so the system was fully functional and I was able to open eventvwr.msc. There was nothing noticeable in the logs. With our saved image disk, I disabled the 'Remote Desktop Services UserMode Port Redirector' service and tried again.

This time, it failed again, but services.msc didn't show any hanging services. Some were started, some were not. I tried to use the MSDTC uninstall and reinstall trick that I saw on this forum, but that doesn't change anything. Heres my findings not sure if it helps anyone I have tried on a Windows 7 Ent X86 on a Dell Laptop intially installed all the pieces of software, I took a ghost image of the machine before sysprepping, I then ran sysprep the machine for deployment and get the error 'Windows could not finish configuring the system.

To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer' upon the sysprep (mini-setup stage) or whatever it is now called. I have reimaged the machine and removed the software and still the problem occurs after sysprep. After rebuilding the machine from scratch again and wiping all partitions and then installing the software one by one and then trying sysprep it seems it works after Windows updates and after I installed the majority of pieces of software and done further (painful process of install app, then sysprep and see) I found that my issue was due to the 'Alcohol 120% 1.9.8.7612' program causing the problem - maybe because it installs virtual drives or something - or the drivers it installs. The other issue I sometimes got is a known issue which when running the sysprep on the machine you get a fatal error and the solutiion to that is the WMPNetworkSVc Service needs to be stopped otherwise sysprep doesnt run (just stopped not disabled) then when you run sysprep /oobe /Generalize it will either shutdown or reboot dependent on what option you choose. This Media player service issue I think microsoft should fix they should either incorporate it so that sysprep automatically stops that service when sysprep is run or Microsoft should fix the issue what is causing it.

Hope this helps anyone as it was a pain to try and work out that the alcohol software was the problem in this case. Now working with Win7 enterprise. Bare install and sysprep works fine (have to kill WMPNetworkSVc). As soon as I add any unattend.xml the boot up fails in specialize pass. I built one up with Office 2007 and it will sysprep OK (no unattend, just sysprep by itself). I did NOT install Crystal reports runtime, or any antivirus, or any cisco network access control software.

The unattend failure is driving me crazy though. I suggest building up a virtual, install each piece of software, take a snapshot, then try sysprep. That is how I found that Business Objects with crystal reports was causing the post sysprep, reboot loop. Whoops, I didn't mean to click 'Propose Answer' on the above post. Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to undo that. Is anyone else installing Daemon Tools before capturing the image?

Cecil 2009 mentions that his problem was Alcohol 120%. I'm wondering if my problem was Daemon Tools.

Maybe certain types of filter drivers (such as those that Alcohol 120%, Daemon Tools, and most virus scanners install) are causing this problem. Jared ESD, does the Citrix XenApp Web Plugin install a filter driver? (If so, it should be listed in the device manager, under 'Non-Plug and Play Drivers'; you may need to select View ->Show Hidden Devices to see this category of devices.) I will say this again: Microsoft, your silence on this matter is quite telling.

I suppose that sending a severely flawed product to manufacture is not something of which Microsoft is particularly proud, but this issue needs to be addressed. Windows 7 is not enterprise-ready as long as this bug exists. Interesting, Indeed, Daemon-Tools is one of the installed apps on our system. Especially Daemon-tools was the one that made me thinking in the beginning, because it has special SPTD drivers etc, but a quick uninstall didn't solve the issue. As mentioned, uninstalling software had no effect. Once it's installed, your sysprep will always fail. We have no anti-virus software pre-installed, no web-plugins (except adobe flash etc).

I think a complete re-install is the only option, like netjim66 did, using a virtual machine with snapshots. Sysprep in Windows 7 has become a very time consuming thing, and a huge waste of time.

We are testing every sysprep with fingers and toes crossed, while it's giving us a high blood pressure, an increased heart rate and a sweaty forehead. Jeff, It's not Kaspersky. We have no anti-virus software in our image, and it doesn't work. We only use Microsoft Office, Dynamics NAV + CRM client and Adobe Reader + Flash plug-in, silverlight etc. We have done some extra research, focussing on the Services in the registry (CurrentControlSet services).

After uninstalling ALL the software (while sysprep still fails), we have made a comparison against an original CLEAN installation of Win 7 Enterprise. These are the differences. The services in the list below are present in our 'Installed, fully configured' version of windows 7, where ALL software had already been uninstalled. However, this is the version where sysprep always fails. NOTE: remarkable is, that there are services in the original CLEAN installation, that were NOT present in our 'Installed, fully configured' version! Why do you have Deamon-tools listed??? And possibly Deamon tools might be like the Alcohol 120% software whereby once installed sysprep always screws up even after removing it (I can say for Alcohol 120% if it is installed sysprep fails, even if you have removed it before running sysprep - the only way is to make sure it is not installed before running sysprep).

Have you tried your machine built without Daemon tools installed??? Wii Console Skin Template Dji. Removing the software once installed is not the fix. Or are you trying to fix it as it is?

Having the same error after sysprepping Windows 7 and loading the image onto a Raid 0 with 2 drives using Imagex. I imaged an IDE drive with Windows 7 and enabled Raid in the bios to load the driver into windows. I then used ghost to clone the IDE drive to the 2 drives in Raid 0 and the system boots fine. Major difference between Ghost and imagex is ghost is sector-based and imagex is file-based. Some file is getting screwed up somewhere. I need to get this to work with imagex, someone help please.

I'd just like to add a +1 to the thread. I too am getting this exact same error, and I have no idea what's causing it. I first discovered the error when I took an imagex wim of the Win7 OS. When I redeployed the WIM, I got the error during the OOBE. As a test, I just ran a sysprep /generalize /oobe with a reboot, and I get the same error.

So something during the sysprep process seems to trigger it. Anyway - I hope someone can figure out what the issue is. Update: I just did a sysprep WITHOUT the /generalize bit, and it worked. No change to OS or apps. Just a change in the sysprep switch. Okay, it's October 22. Windows 7 is now on shelves.

Where's the fix, Microsoft? Heck, I'll settle for acknowledgment of the problem. We can't deploy Windows 7 in an enterprise environment until this problem is resolved.

I understand that Microsoft does not 'endorse' installing filter drivers in systems that are to be Sysprepped, but despite the fact, doing so has never been an issue in Windows 2000 or XP. If Microsoft is going to remove from Windows 7 functionality that existed in previous OSs, at least improve Sysprep/Setup's internal processes so as to fail GRACEFULLY during Sysprep. Don't wait until the machine has already been Sysprepped and then put it into an infinite reboot loop during Setup, absent any meaningful error messages in the GUI or logs. Until this issue is resolved, the checkbook will not be coming out. Okay, it's October 22. Windows 7 is now on shelves. Where's the fix, Microsoft?

Heck, I'll settle for acknowledgment of the problem. We can't deploy Windows 7 in an enterprise environment until this problem is resolved. I understand that Microsoft does not 'endorse' installing filter drivers in systems that are to be Sysprepped, but despite the fact, doing so has never been an issue in Windows 2000 or XP. If Microsoft is going to remove from Windows 7 functionality that existed in previous OSs, at least improve Sysprep/Setup's internal processes so as to fail GRACEFULLY during Sysprep. Don't wait until the machine has already been Sysprepped and then put it into an infinite reboot loop during Setup, absent any meaningful error messages in the GUI or logs. Until this issue is resolved, the checkbook will not be coming out.

Here same problem. We want to start the deployment. I have spent days/weeks to solve this problem but I can't find the resolution. Is it really a service that Windows 7 is failing on? Is it a driver? Is it an application? Tried almost everything.

Nothing helps! Regards, Mark S.

Here same problem. We want to start the deployment.

I have spent days/weeks to solve this problem but I can't find the resolution. Is it really a service that Windows 7 is failing on? Is it a driver?

Is it an application? Tried almost everything. Nothing helps! Regards, Mark S. Mark, There are two issues with Sysprep in Windows 7: • Sysprep fails to start because a Windows Media Player service (related to DRM) is running.

(Killing the related process allows Sysprep to start.) • Sysprep completes successfully, but 'Mini Setup' (or whatever Microsoft is calling it nowadays) fails with the message in the title of this thread. The second problem appears to occur for a number of different reasons. We have established that SPTD (from DuplexSecure) causes this problem. As such, Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120%, and any other optical drive emulation product that relies on SPTD will very likely cause this failure. I think we should all create a list of applications/drivers/etc. That cause this error to occur. The easiest way to do this is to create your Windows 7 images in a virtual machine, e.g., using Sun VBox.

Take a snapshot of the VM before you install each piece of software, and Sysprep the installation after each new piece of software is installed. If Mini Setup fails at any point, it will be obvious which piece of software caused the failure.

Then, you can simply revert to the previous snapshot and avoid installing the problematic software. I will report back with my findings as to what is causing this failure in our particular environment. Here same problem. We want to start the deployment. I have spent days/weeks to solve this problem but I can't find the resolution. Is it really a service that Windows 7 is failing on?

Is it a driver? Is it an application?

Tried almost everything. Nothing helps! Regards, Mark S. Mark, There are two issues with Sysprep in Windows 7: • Sysprep fails to start because a Windows Media Player service (related to DRM) is running.

(Killing the related process allows Sysprep to start.) • Sysprep completes successfully, but 'Mini Setup' (or whatever Microsoft is calling it nowadays) fails with the message in the title of this thread. The second problem appears to occur for a number of different reasons. We have established that SPTD (from DuplexSecure) causes this problem. As such, Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120%, and any other optical drive emulation product that relies on SPTD will very likely cause this failure. I think we should all create a list of applications/drivers/etc. That cause this error to occur. The easiest way to do this is to create your Windows 7 images in a virtual machine, e.g., using Sun VBox.

Take a snapshot of the VM before you install each piece of software, and Sysprep the installation after each new piece of software is installed. If Mini Setup fails at any point, it will be obvious which piece of software caused the failure. Then, you can simply revert to the previous snapshot and avoid installing the problematic software.

I will report back with my findings as to what is causing this failure in our particular environment. Hello Gerald, Sysprep does start (because we have the Enterprise version, the WMP service is not running), so that's ok.

We are facing the problem 'windows could not finish configuring the system'. We already started re-installing Windows 7 in Hyper-V with snapshots. Because we have a very large list of applications (about 30 to 40) it take's a long time to resolve this problem. I think that the following applications could cause the problem: Virtual PC 2007 Kaspersky Antivirus Networking Client (so not the real antivirus application, but only the network client to push to real antivirus application to) Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 Because the sysprep is failing when Windows 7 is going to start services, we thought to resolve this by removing the failing service. When the sysprep fails (with the error: windows could not finish configuring the system), you can press SHIFT+F10 to get a Command Prompt.

When quering all services with command 'sc query state= all', we have managed to get a list of all stopped and started services. Our list is: We hope to find the solution in the services list, because it takes a very long time to reinstall all applications in Hyper-V with snapshots. When we know something more, we will report this a.s.a.p. Regards, Mark. I've been reading this thread for the last couple of weeks while I workout the kinks in my Windows 7 Enterprise sysprep process. I was encountering the exact same error that started this thread, and I figured out what was causing it for me after starting over from scratch. In my case, it was caused by pre-installing network printers prior to running sysprep.

I'm not sure how many other people may or may not do that, but I thought I'd put it out there. It definitely didn't cause problems with XP & sysprep. As with other people's experience on this thread, simply uninstalling the printers did not remedy my Windows 7 sysprep problems; I had to start over from scratch. Little update from here: The services list does not seem to be the issue. I can not find any service that's causing the problem. I am almost finished reinstalling the system op a virtual Hyper-V machine. I am now using the 'audit mode' to install/configure the image.

After every application I make a snapshot and try a sysprep. Everything seems to work, with the same applications and updates.

Do you all use the 'audit mode' to configure your image? (Audit mode can be started by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+F3 on the first boot after an installation when it asks for username/password/computername etc and by the command sysprep.exe /audit /reboot command. I dealt with the 'Windows could not finish configuring the system' problem for days but now I've made 5 images all of them working without that dreaded error. Windows 7 deployment is quite a bit too sensitive compared to XP and Vista in my opinion. Anyway, there's 3 things you have to do to get Windows 7 fully working with MDT 2010 1. Implement the 'Multiple users' error script fix. Make sure the first vanilla image you ever use is actually 'Hand installed' meaning either a mounted ISO or a clean DVD install.

No Deploying. Make sure the image you want to capture is NOT joined to a domain. Hope this spares someone the hours I put into finding this out. I experienced the same error in Windows 2008 R2 when deploying from a template in VMware Virtual Infrastructure. I had previously deployed from the template without issue, the only change being that Kaspersky Antivirus and Network Agent was installed.

After reading through this forum, I removed Kaspersky Antivirus and Network Agent and then the sysprep process worked fine again. Although I am happy that I can use sysprep again, the workaround is not ideal as now Antivirus is going to have to be installed on each server deployed. Hopefully someone finds a permanent fix. Here's what I'm doing now: Downloaded Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit ISO. Mounted the iso and imported it into MDT 2010. Installed latest WAIK on the machine with MDT 2010 (no beta versions).

Deploy to my Dell Optiplex with standard task sequence adding machine to WORKGROUP. Just used all defaults. Add my applications, add shortcuts to desktop and pin items to task bar. Sysprep with NO unattend in the sysprep folder. Shutdown and Generalise Boot with WAIK 7 CD and imagex copy to another location. Import to MDT 2010 as custom image and use setup files from Windows 7 already in MDT Set a new task (default) to deploy. Set 'Copy Profile' as TRUE.

'Do not clean task bar' to TRUE Deploy to another Optiplex and all seems well. I do not have to kill the WMPNetworkSVc service anymore either.

Seems a lot of the other problems I was having like copy profile not working seem to be gone. If I put an unattend file in the sysprep folder THEN run sysprep, I still have issues with the restart loop. Hope this helps. Deepak Hi Deepak, thanks for your answer, it solved my problem.

I have Windows 7 Professional x86 installed on Dell Optiplex, I also installed a bunch of other programs (Daemon Tools Lite v4.35.5, 7-Zip, Adobe Reader 9.2, Office 2007, Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition with SP1 and SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition with SP1). When sysprepping with the above image, I had the same problem as the title of this thread, I did the following and sysprep worked! Disable 'Windows Media Player Networking Sharing' 2. Uninstall Daemon Tools Lite 3. Uninstall SPTD using SPTDinst-v162-x86.exe (downloaded from the link above) 4. Using VMware I installed a fresh Reference VM, to which I gradually add more bits and customisations.

From the beginning I logged in wiwth CTL-SHIFT-F3 to get into Audit Mode. The sequence every time is: 1. Power on, this goes into Audit mode because that is the default 2. Do custom stuff, add app(s), change settings, etc 3. Shutdown and take snapshot 4.

Sysprep /reboot /generalize /oobe /unattend:C: blah.xml (including copyprofile, which works) 6. Watch what happens If it worked, great - go back to snapshot and start from 1 again.

If it screwed, go back to previous snapshot. I managed to get working sysprepped images for a long time, but after a bunch of new installs, my image would give the dreaded Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer. I went back and forth and isolated it to Kaspersky Antivirus 2010. This software alone would cause the error.

After reading some posts here I figured that some Kaspersky service was screwing things up. So I manually disabled the 'avp' service (which, by the way, could only be done from within the application - doing it as administrator in the services control panel would give me 'access is denied' errors. But that is probably done to current day AV semantics). Then I sysprepped again (without any running avps), but I would still get the same error. I am now installing KAV2010 post-OOBE, but I don't like it as it defeats the idea of an image based install. Since it does not appear to be caused by a misbehaving service, pre-sysprep disabling and post-sysprep enabling would not help either.

And even if it did I could not figure out how to change the avp service startup config with command line. FYI, the images I am cooking up are Windows 7 64-bit Enterprise.

I've been reading this thread for the last couple of weeks while I workout the kinks in my Windows 7 Enterprise sysprep process. I was encountering the exact same error that started this thread, and I figured out what was causing it for me after starting over from scratch. In my case, it was caused by pre-installing network printers prior to running sysprep. I'm not sure how many other people may or may not do that, but I thought I'd put it out there.

It definitely didn't cause problems with XP & sysprep. As with other people's experience on this thread, simply uninstalling the printers did not remedy my Windows 7 sysprep problems; I had to start over from scratch. I work at a college in Iowa, and I have been fooling around with Windows 7 Enterprise and sysprep for the last month and just figured this same thing out. I echo what topkwark said, pre-installing network printers makes sysprep die. Hope this gets fixed fast. I fully agree with Gerald Clough, and note that in January 2010 Microsoft is still silent on this issue.

In my case Windows 7 setup formatted the disk, so third party tools cannot be the issue. I have spent many hours trawling forums unsuccessfully looking for an answer on this. Most posts are asking 'What have I done wrong' You should be asking Microsoft what have they done wrong, why is this part of the operating system clearly inadequate? Why is the logging so inadequate? When are you going to release a response?

This is very unsatisfactory. Having encountered a myriad of sysprep problems over the past 6 weeks in preparing 10 Windows 7 images, here are my thoughts on the “Windows could not finish configuring the system issue”. This forum has been the best resource i have seen on the problem.

Despite the lack of any input from Microsoft, or even acknowledgement of the problem which has been around since Vista was released. I don’t have any definitive answer for anybody, only what did or did not work for me. Hope it might help someone. First of all my platform is Windows 7 Professional 32 bit.

I found the error occurs if you include copyprofile TRUE in the answer file, Microsofts only supported method for the default profile, which doesn’t work. I also got the error on the last image made which had all the same applications as on other images made without any problem.

After wasting more time trying to work out the cause, and removing installed apps, I went back and made the image again, taking multiple Ghost backups at various stages. I left network printer drivers off the image, and there were no issues. However all the previous images had the printer drivers with no problems. I then added the printer drivers, syspreped again, and no problems. I don't have Kaspersky, Alchohol 120% or Crystal Reports, Citrix XEN App installed on any of my images. For me the Windows Media Player Network service is also not the issue. It has always been stopped when i checked it.

It is Manual startup. Domain or Workgroup membership doesn’t make any difference. I never used any 3rd party tools to format the drive - created partitions using the installation DVD. Partition 1 100MB windows created, Partition 2 C: Partition 3 D: It cannot be attributed to the imaging software as the sysprepped machine fails upon restarting. So it seems completely random to me.

The only consistent thread is once you have this problem you have to go back to square 1 and start again. I have been wrestling with this problem for a while as well. When I complete a vanilla install of Windows 7, customize the Administrator account in Audit mode, sysprep the box with CopyProfile=true, and restart the box, it will go into the OOBE Windows just fine. But if I apply the image created with imageX at any of those points (before sysprep or after), it comes up with the error. I don't have any programs installed on the image. The only clue I receive is when I re-apply the image and go back into Audit mode, Windows informs me that the Recycle Bin has been corrupted.

I'm positive this occurs during the imagex step, as ImageX removes all recycle bin information. I can only get the machine to boot in Audit mode, as the sysprepped version will not boot, as described by others on this forum. Does anyone have an idea how to get ImageX to not delete system files? The problem seems to be the registy entries made by sysprep, which probably should have, but didnt, change at the first reboot.

To confirm, after a clean image capture with WDS and install, upon the first reboot the system will not go past the message: 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1. When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11 2. Open the REGEDIT 3.

Navigate to hklm system setup 4. Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6. Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7. Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8. Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9. Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10.

Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11. Exit REGEDIT and reboot The installation now continues on the the login, and in my case it ran the i got my OOBE. I am just using this to back up a loaded system for quick recovery in case of a failure (which i just had) so i can live with doing that manually. I am sure there's much brighter bulbs out there that can figure out how to implement that in an unattended manner for general use. Have a great day. And as a side note, if this works for you too, why not post it in a forum you've been to, as i have seen a hundred different forums with people having the same problems.

The problem seems to be the registy entries made by sysprep, which probably should have, but didnt, change at the first reboot. To confirm, after a clean image capture with WDS and install, upon the first reboot the system will not go past the message: 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1. When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11 2.

Open the REGEDIT 3. Navigate to hklm system setup 4. Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6.

Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7. Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8. Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9. Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10. Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11.

Exit REGEDIT and reboot The installation now continues on the the login, and in my case it ran the i got my OOBE. I am just using this to back up a loaded system for quick recovery in case of a failure (which i just had) so i can live with doing that manually.

I am sure there's much brighter bulbs out there that can figure out how to implement that in an unattended manner for general use. Have a great day. And as a side note, if this works for you too, why not post it in a forum you've been to, as i have seen a hundred different forums with people having the same problems. After following this, My computer had a Login screen, not OOBE screen. Which i cannot login(btw administrator is disabled), which i think by doing this the computer will stop 'syspreping' anyway. This is not working for me.(I'm doing sysprep and this stopped it.). We have been experiencing the same problem with Windows 7 + sysprep.

But finally we found the root of all evil (at least in our case.) Everything seems to be fine and I have reinstalled Windows 7 + all other software that we use over 10 times and then run sysprep /shutdown /generalize /oobe. Then I have prayed.

Each and everytime when the images were distrubuted they freeze with 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer' and after that nothing helps. BUT NOW FINALLY!!!

The package consists of: Windows 7 Enterprise Adobe Acrobat Reader Adobe Flash Player Adobe Shockwave Player Firefox ICA Client Java Microsoft Office 2007 Microsoft Project 2007 Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2007 Microsoft Office Visio Pro 2007 Putty QuickTime Roxio SPSS 17 WinSCP WS_FTP LE + updates from Microsoft Updates The problem for us seems to be two drivers for HP DC7900 MT (theese drivers were for Windows 7 Pro?!? But as they were missing in Windows 7 Enterprise we used them) Chipset - Intel Active Client Manager HECI Device Driver for Microsoft Windows 7 version 8.9.0.1023 Rev. A (15 Feb 2010) System Management - Intel AMT LMS_SOL for AMT 5.xx for Microsoft Windows 7 version 5.5.1.1012 Rev. A (22 Oct 2009) As we built a new package with all the before mentioned software but left out the two drivers then everything worked as a charm! Hope this will help someone else experiencing the same thing.

You are not alone. I've been reading this thread for the last couple of weeks while I workout the kinks in my Windows 7 Enterprise sysprep process. I was encountering the exact same error that started this thread, and I figured out what was causing it for me after starting over from scratch. In my case, it was caused by pre-installing network printers prior to running sysprep. I'm not sure how many other people may or may not do that, but I thought I'd put it out there. It definitely didn't cause problems with XP & sysprep.

As with other people's experience on this thread, simply uninstalling the printers did not remedy my Windows 7 sysprep problems; I had to start over from scratch. This solved the issue for me.once I removed the network printers, all was good. I've been having the same problem sysprepping and deploying Windows 7 and narrowed it down to Kaspersky (6.0.4.1212 a). I did finally get it to work with Kaspersky installed and updated: • set up the ref computer, Office 2007, all Microsoft updates, Java, Flash, Acrobat Reader, etc.

• install Kaspersky last, just before sysprep & capture; DON'T let Kaspersky reboot • run Kaspersky update • from within Kaspersky, pause protection (resume manually) • Kaspersky Settings • under Protection, uncheck Launch at Startup and Advanced Disinfection • under Options, uncheck Self Defense and External Control of System Service (I think these are the real culprits) • close Settings, then Exit taskbar icon • sysprep and capture the image • re-enable all protection after you deploy the image Hope this helps. Andrew Liefeld P.S. It won't matter if you let Kaspersky reboot, I've sysprepped, captured, & deployed several times since then with the same system; you just have to make sure Kaspersky is disabled before sysprep is run. Four complete image builds - ugh! Good news is that I got it to work - I left out the network printers, and also for good measure disabled all startup items with - it's an oldie but a goodie.

Our config is a Dell Optiplex 380 and Windows 7 Professional, plus the following apps were included in our image: 7-Zip 4.65 Adobe Flash Player 10 ActiveX Publisher:Adobe Systems Incorporated Version:10.0.45.2 Adobe Flash Player 10 Plugin Publisher:Adobe Systems Incorporated Version:10.0.45.2 Apple Application Support Publisher:Apple Inc. Version:1.1.0 Apple Mobile Device Support Publisher:Apple Inc. Version:2.6.0.32 Apple Software Update Publisher:Apple Inc. Version:2.1.1.116 AusLogics Disk Defrag Publisher:Auslogics Software Pty Ltd Version:Version 3.1 Belarc Advisor 8.1 Bonjour Publisher:Apple Inc. Version:1.0.106 ccleaner Publisher:Piriform Version:2.29 Everything 1.2.1.371 FileMaker Pro 10 Publisher:FileMaker, Inc. Version:10.0.3.0 Foxit PDF IFilter Publisher:Foxit Software Version:2.0.0.208 Foxit PDF Preview Handler Publisher:Tim Heuer Version:1.0.0 Foxit Reader Publisher:Foxit Corporation Version:3.2.0.0303 ImgBurn Publisher:LIGHTNING UK! Version:2.5.1.0 iTunes Publisher:Apple Inc.

Version:9.0.3.15 Java(TM) 6 Update 18 Publisher:Sun Microsystems, Inc. For those who have Kaspersky installed on your image (and it is causing the deployment to fail) and you do not want the hassle of having to rebuild from scratch, here is another workaround which makes the process a little quicker. 1) When the error occurs press 'shift+F10' to open the command prompt. 1) Rename the following files in the 'system32 drivers' folder. Klbg.sys >klbg.hold klim6.sys >klim6.hold klif.sys >klif.hold (automatically restored by Kaspersky when system is back up) 2) You have now disabled Kaspersky. Reboot the system and allow it to complete the last sysprep phase of the deployment.

3) Once complete, Login and you will notice that Kaspersky is loaded but cannot enable some components. This is fine for deployment purposes and you will be able to re-enable them when you re-deploy your working image. 4) Sysprep the image as before or use 'C: Windows System32 sysprep sysprep.exe /quiet /generalize /shutdown /oobe' and then recapture your image. 5) Use group policies or scripts to rename the '.hold' files back to '.sys' after you have redeployed your image. NOTE: If you automate this process using gpo's or login scripts then Kaspersky will only be active on you second reboot. If you have complex builds like I do that take forever to configure this should save you a bundle of time having to rebuild.

I experienced this same problem 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' For those who have Kaspersky installed on your image (and it is causing the deployment to fail) and you do not want the hassle of having to rebuild from scratch, here is another workaround which makes the process a little quicker. 1) When the error occurs press 'shift+F10' to open the command prompt.

1) Rename the following files in the 'system32 drivers' folder. Klbg.sys >klbg.hold klim6.sys >klim6.hold klif.sys >klif.hold (automatically restored by Kaspersky when system is back up) 2) You have now disabled Kaspersky. Reboot the system and allow it to complete the last sysprep phase of the deployment. 3) Once complete, Login and you will notice that Kaspersky is loaded but cannot enable some components. This is fine for deployment purposes and you will be able to re-enable them when you re-deploy your working image. 4) Sysprep the image as before or use 'C: Windows System32 sysprep sysprep.exe /quiet /generalize /shutdown /oobe' and then recapture your image.

5) Use group policies or scripts to rename the '.hold' files back to '.sys' after you have redeployed your image. NOTE: If you automate this process using gpo's or login scripts then Kaspersky will only be active on you second reboot.

If you have complex builds like I do that take forever to configure this should save you a bundle of time having to rebuild. We got ours to work using a combination of TurboUK's solution & HoHumDiddleDee's solution. What I want to know is why we didn't have any of these problems on the Dell E6500 series laptops? This issue only reared it's ugly head on the Dell Latitude E6510 laptops. This Solution Works:) THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1. When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F10 2. Open the REGEDIT 3.

Navigate to hklm system setup 4. Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6.

Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7. Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8.

Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9. Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10. Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11. Exit REGEDIT and reboot.

I now have the ACTUAL SOLUTION to this problem. This solution will actually tell you exactly what registry key is causing your sysprep to fail, so then you don't have to slowly install every program until you find the problem -- especially since this didn't work for me because my problem has been intermittent. This issue is caused by certain registry keys that are either: a) Larger than 8kb b) Set with incorrect permissions c) Corrupt in some way For me, the problem was intermittent (same registry key would sometimes cause the issue and sometimes not - must be corrupt sometimes) so it was impossible to tell what program was doing it.

Luckily, there is a log you can look at that will tell you exactly what registry key is erroring out. Here are the steps for getting the log you need to see: When you see the error message, do the following: 1.) Push Shift+F10 to get to a command prompt 2.) Navigate to C: windows Panther 3.) Find the Setup.etl file and find a way to copy this file off of the system (I copied it to the D: partition and used Ghost to gather that partition and get the file off) 4.) Copy the setup.etl file from the corrupted system to another computer that has Windows 7. Put it on the root of C: for easiest access. 5.) Open a Command Prompt on the Windows 7 computer. 6.) Navigate to the root of C: (or wherever you saved the file) 7.) Type 'tracerpt setup.etl -o logfile.csv' 8.) Close the command prompt and open up logfile.csv in your text editor of choice. 9.) Look through the log file (towards the end probably) for messages that say 'Failed to process reg key or one of it's decendants' For me, the exact eror looked like this: 'Failed to process reg key or one of its descendants: [ REGISTRY MACHINE SOFTWARE ESET ESET Security CurrentVersion Plugins 01000200 Profiles @My profile]' If you search for 'reg key' or 'failed to process' you should find the failure.

10.) Remove this software from your image, or find out how to get the registry key that is failing to work properly. After this, you should be able to properly identify any problem keys and remove/workaround them on your image. Jeff Harrison's solution worked for me! I used [shift]+[f10] to open a command prompt, installed a flash drive and copied c: panther setup.etl to it. When I analyzed the file on my own machine, like most here, my problem pointed to a printer that was loaded from a print server.

Back on the broken machine, I started REGEDIT from the command prompt, and navigated to. HKLM Software Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion Print Providers Client Side Rendering Print Provider From there, I drilled down past an unresolved SID key, to Printers, then Connections. From there, I could see all of my printer connections from my print server. I deleted them, closed out REGEDIT, closed out the command prompt, clicked [ok] on the 'Windows could not finish configuring the system' error box, and my system rebooted and completed mini-setup without issues. Thank you Jeff! I was on my third attempt at making an image that contained Autodesk 2010 and was really getting frustrated at having my images fail after sysprep. I'm good to go now!

I have encountered this issue after creating an image of my desktop for backup purposes. I've read through several of the threads in this forum, but I'm running into a problem when following the suggested fix above: ' If you review the Windows panther unattendgc setuperr.log you may see the following entries.'

When I try to open, copy or otherwise access anything in the panther directory, I receive an 'Access is denied' message. Can you provide any direction? Thanks for any help you might be able to give. Chris Shane Paige. Found something.

I've checked [ REGISTRY MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows CurrentVersion Installer UserData]. In the users folder of my setup account i've found installation entries for Windows Automated Install Kit and ATI Radeon Graphic Drivers. After uninstalling the WAIK and upgrading the ATI drivers the registry entries disappeared.

Then i tried another Sysprep Run. This time it let me pass through the 'initializing services' section, but after recognizing my drivers the system boot fails again with a new Windows Dialog Box.

Error Message: 'Windows Setup could not configure Windows to run on this computers hardware' I tried again after disabling AHCI for my Intel SSD. Same problem. I've reviewed setuperr.log/setupact.log in c: windows panther and c: windows system32 sysprep panther but i found nothing that seems to be from real interest. I've also recreated logfile.csv from setup.etl and checked for obvious problems, but its difficult when you dont know what to search for. This Logfile has about 50k+ lines. For those who have Kaspersky installed on your image (and it is causing the deployment to fail) and you do not want the hassle of having to rebuild from scratch, here is another workaround which makes the process a little quicker.

1) When the error occurs press 'shift+F10' to open the command prompt. 1) Rename the following files in the 'system32 drivers' folder. Klbg.sys >klbg.hold klim6.sys >klim6.hold klif.sys >klif.hold (automatically restored by Kaspersky when system is back up) 2) You have now disabled Kaspersky. Reboot the system and allow it to complete the last sysprep phase of the deployment.

3) Once complete, Login and you will notice that Kaspersky is loaded but cannot enable some components. This is fine for deployment purposes and you will be able to re-enable them when you re-deploy your working image. 4) Sysprep the image as before or use 'C: Windows System32 sysprep sysprep.exe /quiet /generalize /shutdown /oobe' and then recapture your image. 5) Use group policies or scripts to rename the '.hold' files back to '.sys' after you have redeployed your image. NOTE: If you automate this process using gpo's or login scripts then Kaspersky will only be active on you second reboot. If you have complex builds like I do that take forever to configure this should save you a bundle of time having to rebuild.

I have Kaspersky 6.0.4.1424 a. This soluion worked for me to deploy the image. I did not try to reimage the machine after deployment. I tried a few other solution that didn't help to capture an image with Kaspersky installed I tried the posted solution to install Kaspersky without rebooting and then sysprep but the sysprep and capture still failed. Our Kaspersky is controlly by an admin server so I can't turn off all modules but I turned off mail, proactive defense, anti-spy, anti-hacker, anti-spam and device control and sysprep still fails. If I image BEFORE installing Kaspersky everything works perfectly. Hello, I have been reading this forum for a while and find quite interesting that microsoft and its so called enginneers never come up with a solution for the various problems, but rather it's the IT professionals that come up solutions.

Bravo to all of you, shame to microsoft! I've been trying to make a win 7 enterprise image for several labs. Although microsoft does not understand why we need to copy profiles, we, IT professionals know the importance of this, especially in a lab environment where all students must have exacly the same tools in front of them.

Lately I've having having the dreadfull 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer'. Thanks to the help of many contributors from this forum I've pin-pointed printer drivers has being the problem. However the error only occurs when I install the printer as a network printer. To make things clear, here's the situation: I install all the necessary software as administrator without any problems, and just before running sysprep I install a network printer (from a 2008 server) with a successul test page.

After reboot and when windows is starting services I get the error'windows could not.restart the computer'. If I install the same printer, but as a local tcp-ip with the same drivers everything works fine. Any suggestions anybody? Could it be that upon rebooting the machine cannot contact the print server? Thanks in advance. The above MS hotfix does not work for the Kaspersky issue.

There are at least 2 solutions that do work for Kasperksy 6.0.4.1424 a: • The TurboUK solution to rename klif.sys and klim6.sys (there is no klbg.sys in this version of Kaspersky). Just renaming these 2 files is enough • This morning I got my reply from Kaspersky support and their solution also works. It is to (before running sysprep) go into 'Settings' >>'Options' and uncheck 'Enable Self-Defense' For everyone's inofrmation, In adition to some of the above lists of programs that do not create this problem I can add the following to the list. These programs installed in win7 32 bit without creating the problem: All the default HP stuff that comes intslled in a new Compaq 500B Minitower HP power Manager Roxio Creator Business WAIK (someone else above had an issue but it works for me) Crystal Reports ver. 10 (full version) Run time version of Crystal Reports 10 that is shipped with RDPwin (a Hotel Property Management System) Pervasive client engine and tools of Pervasive SQL server Treesize v.1.6. It's been ONE YEAR AND NINE MONTHS (21 MONTHS!!!) since this problem was brought to Microsoft's attention and not one official mention or explanation.

Rich_RRCC related that he spent a week on the phone with a Microsoft engineer, so it's not as though Microsoft continues to be unaware of this problem. In fact, if the official record were ever exposed, I suspect we'd find that Microsoft knew about this issue before the gold-master was sent-off for production. It appears that: a) The hotfix cited in this thread previously (981542) is not a panacea for the problem at-hand b) The title of the aforementioned hotfix does not describe the problem at-hand accurately: A Windows 7 or a Windows Server 2008 R2 image deployment process stops when you try to deploy the image on another computer This occurs 'when you try to deploy the image on THE SAME COMPUTER.' Quite frankly, it's shameful that this show-stopper has not been addressed; as I stated earlier in this thread, Windows 7 is NOT 'Enterprise-Ready' until this issue is addressed in full. Perry.M, even though the hotfix appears not to address this particular problem, it is indeed possible to download the hotfix, should you be so inclined.

Click the ' ' link right near the top of the page. You'll have to provide an email address, as Microsoft prefers not to make its hotfixes readily accessible.

I recommend you use and provide Microsoft with a throw-away email address. You will receieve an email from Microsoft immediately, which contains a link to the hotfix downloads for the platforms you select, as well as the passwords to decrypt the self-extracting EXE files. When you copy-paste the passwords from the email, be sure that you do not inadvertently highlight a newline at the end of the password, as pasting the password into the field will fail if you copy the invisible newline character. You may wish to highlight only the first few characters of the password and then use Shift-Right-Arrow to select the remaining characters; this will ensure that the newline is not copied.

I have found that this error is caused by a particular application. I spent months trying to figure out why this is happening.

In the end, in my particular case it ws NOD4 causing the issue (NOD4.2 on the other hand works fine). The moment I excluded NOD4 from my image PC started fine, I captured the image fine, the PC started fine after the capture, and I had no issues deploying the imaage to other PCs. If I put NOD4 back inside the image, same problem comes back. For different users the problem may be caused by different applications.

The way I figured out it was NOD4 in my particular case is by doing the following: During the startup, when the error occurs, I press 'shift+f10' to bring the comand prompt. I then brought up the explorer and started shutting down service at a time to try and isolate which service was the problem.

This id not help me because even though I shut NOD servoice down I did not notice the problem go away until I uninstalled NOD4 completely through the same command prompt at the time when the error occurs. Once I uninstalled NOD4, restarted the pc.it went through 'starting services' fine and the PC completed the setup. What I suggest is to try uninstalling application at a time until you find the culprit.

Ever since NOD released version 4.2, I no longer have this issue, I can now include NOD in my image if I want to. I now have the ACTUAL SOLUTION to this problem. This solution will actually tell you exactly what registry key is causing your sysprep to fail, so then you don't have to slowly install every program until you find the problem -- especially since this didn't work for me because my problem has been intermittent. This issue is caused by certain registry keys that are either: a) Larger than 8kb b) Set with incorrect permissions c) Corrupt in some way For me, the problem was intermittent (same registry key would sometimes cause the issue and sometimes not - must be corrupt sometimes) so it was impossible to tell what program was doing it. Luckily, there is a log you can look at that will tell you exactly what registry key is erroring out. Here are the steps for getting the log you need to see: When you see the error message, do the following: 1.) Push Shift+F10 to get to a command prompt 2.) Navigate to C: windows Panther 3.) Find the Setup.etl file and find a way to copy this file off of the system (I copied it to the D: partition and used Ghost to gather that partition and get the file off) 4.) Copy the setup.etl file from the corrupted system to another computer that has Windows 7.

Put it on the root of C: for easiest access. 5.) Open a Command Prompt on the Windows 7 computer. 6.) Navigate to the root of C: (or wherever you saved the file) 7.) Type 'tracerpt setup.etl -o logfile.csv' 8.) Close the command prompt and open up logfile.csv in your text editor of choice. 9.) Look through the log file (towards the end probably) for messages that say 'Failed to process reg key or one of it's decendants' For me, the exact eror looked like this: 'Failed to process reg key or one of its descendants: [ REGISTRY MACHINE SOFTWARE ESET ESET Security CurrentVersion Plugins 01000200 Profiles @My profile]' If you search for 'reg key' or 'failed to process' you should find the failure. 10.) Remove this software from your image, or find out how to get the registry key that is failing to work properly.

After this, you should be able to properly identify any problem keys and remove/workaround them on your image. The above process worked for me. 1)Booted winx64 from HD with a flash drive connected 2)After the error followed the process above and copied the file to the flash drive. 3)Found SPTD to be the offending registry key 4)Went to the bad PC again and ran regedit and tried to delete the SPTD entry 5)Could not delete the whole entry so I deleted the path 6)Restarted the pc and now it works!!! I have spent the last week fighting this same error trying to sysprep Windows 7 Enterprise and ghosting with Ghost Suite 2.5 (Ghost 11.5) and came accross this site about the same time. After reading every post on this thread, I too went through and installed every program we use one by one (30 on the base image). I was beginning to get so stressed out since our IT Director wanted this image to be rolled out in the next two months to co-incide with the new wings opening at the two high schools in our corporation. I certainly did not have the time that some of the people her spent trying to figure this problem out, not that they did either.

What I eventually found was that none of the applications were causing this error. I can't necessarilly point towards Ghost causing this error either although it mostly appeared after the WinPE ran. I even tried different answer files, but thatwas inconsistant as well. I do think it may have been in the way I was setting up the Ghost Cast Server session. With XP, I was used to selecting Disk 1 since I only to worry about one partition to deal with.

I've noticed that if I don't designate any disk (since there is only one drive in the system anyway), I haven't gotten the error since. May just be wishful thinking. I doubt that this will help anyone, but thought I'd add a little something as well. I am relieved tht it is working.

Perry.M, even though the hotfix appears not to address this particular problem, it is indeed possible to download the hotfix, should you be so inclined. Click the ' ' link right near the top of the page. You'll have to provide an email address, as Microsoft prefers not to make its hotfixes readily accessible. I recommend you use and provide Microsoft with a throw-away email address.

You will receieve an email from Microsoft immediately, which contains a link to the hotfix downloads for the platforms you select, as well as the passwords to decrypt the self-extracting EXE files. When you copy-paste the passwords from the email, be sure that you do not inadvertently highlight a newline at the end of the password, as pasting the password into the field will fail if you copy the invisible newline character. You may wish to highlight only the first few characters of the password and then use Shift-Right-Arrow to select the remaining characters; this will ensure that the newline is not copied. This hotfix solved the problem for me. Thanks for posting it. Perry.M, even though the hotfix appears not to address this particular problem, it is indeed possible to download the hotfix, should you be so inclined. Click the ' ' link right near the top of the page.

You'll have to provide an email address, as Microsoft prefers not to make its hotfixes readily accessible. I recommend you use and provide Microsoft with a throw-away email address. You will receieve an email from Microsoft immediately, which contains a link to the hotfix downloads for the platforms you select, as well as the passwords to decrypt the self-extracting EXE files.

When you copy-paste the passwords from the email, be sure that you do not inadvertently highlight a newline at the end of the password, as pasting the password into the field will fail if you copy the invisible newline character. You may wish to highlight only the first few characters of the password and then use Shift-Right-Arrow to select the remaining characters; this will ensure that the newline is not copied. This hotfix solved the problem for me. Thanks for posting it.

This hotfix solve my problem.after installing windows live component,i install this hotfix and then use sysprep command and that's ok. Our sysprep worked months ago and quit working we have been using and did not have any problems till now. We run win7 enterprise (32bit and 64bit) (currently working with 32bit for this writing) with Symantec Enpoint Protection on Dell optiplex PC's (520,620,745,755,780,960,980, etc.) Using Symantec Ghost to deploy. Tried from scratch, clean load, everything would fail after syspreping (Installed all updates and some basic programs) 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.'

Hotfix resolved the issue, had to find the 32bit version at alternate site since MS doesn't post 32bit version there. - Used for testing only. (Waiting for MS to respond to get patch from them) Must be a update/patch causing this problem. I did install Windows live when it was failing.

Have windows live now and it works with patch. No issues with wmpnetwk.exe or antivirus. No Daemon tools installed. Prompts for computer name during sysprep, joins domain, fully patched, ready to roll. Just need to work on deploying drivers depending on the model BACK IN BUSINESS FINALLY! Thanks Jeff!!! Your solution worked for me.

To get the setup.etl file off the workstation I burned it to a CD as I the USB drive was not recognized. I found the logfile.csv pointed to registry key: REGISTRY USER.DEFAULT Software Microsoft IdentityCRL I ran regedit from the command prompt and browsed to: HKEY_USERS.DEFAULT Software Microsoft Then I deleted the IdentityCRL key. Windows Live Essentials 2011 was installed which uses this registry key. After deleting the key and restarting the Windows 7 x64 workstation all is well. To finish up the process I uninstalled Windows Live Essentials 2011 (Not needed anyway), installed the KB981542 hotfix, ran sysprep (using oobe and generalize option) and created a new ghost image. Everything is working great now.

I appreciate everyone's help in this forum. I now have the ACTUAL SOLUTION to this problem. This solution will actually tell you exactly what registry key is causing your sysprep to fail, so then you don't have to slowly install every program until you find the problem -- especially since this didn't work for me because my problem has been intermittent. This issue is caused by certain registry keys that are either: a) Larger than 8kb b) Set with incorrect permissions c) Corrupt in some way For me, the problem was intermittent (same registry key would sometimes cause the issue and sometimes not - must be corrupt sometimes) so it was impossible to tell what program was doing it. Luckily, there is a log you can look at that will tell you exactly what registry key is erroring out. Here are the steps for getting the log you need to see: When you see the error message, do the following: 1.) Push Shift+F10 to get to a command prompt 2.) Navigate to C: windows Panther 3.) Find the Setup.etl file and find a way to copy this file off of the system (I copied it to the D: partition and used Ghost to gather that partition and get the file off) 4.) Copy the setup.etl file from the corrupted system to another computer that has Windows 7.

Put it on the root of C: for easiest access. 5.) Open a Command Prompt on the Windows 7 computer. 6.) Navigate to the root of C: (or wherever you saved the file) 7.) Type 'tracerpt setup.etl -o logfile.csv' 8.) Close the command prompt and open up logfile.csv in your text editor of choice. 9.) Look through the log file (towards the end probably) for messages that say 'Failed to process reg key or one of it's decendants' For me, the exact eror looked like this: 'Failed to process reg key or one of its descendants: [ REGISTRY MACHINE SOFTWARE ESET ESET Security CurrentVersion Plugins 01000200 Profiles @My profile]' If you search for 'reg key' or 'failed to process' you should find the failure. 10. Download Game Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes Ps2 For Pc more. ) Remove this software from your image, or find out how to get the registry key that is failing to work properly. After this, you should be able to properly identify any problem keys and remove/workaround them on your image. Hello Jeff Thanks so much for your solution.

It enabled me to see what was causing the problem and fix it. I would have probably spent hours starting from scratch otherwise. In my case the issue was caused by the following registry key: (80000005): Failed to process reg key or one of its descendants: [ REGISTRY USER.DEFAULT Software Microsoft IdentityCRL DeviceIdentities production] I deleted the production registry key and rebooted and the sysprep completed without errors. This was a clean image I deployed using MDT 2010 and then installed all the software on and then sysprepped and captured.

Thanks Robin P.S. Any idea if deleting this key could cause any issues? Robin Wilson. I ended up creating a ticket with Microsoft and worked with a rep for a week. The answer was multi-faceted for my issues: 1. I learned I couldn't use the Dell System CD to install the OS.

Started over and used a Windows 7 Volume Licensing CD. I followed the directions ROBINWILSON16 posted in this thread, and determined that my printer drivers were erroring out in the image.

I applied Hotfix 981542. Had to CHANGE the system's default BIOS setting to AHCI or ATA in (System Configuration/SATA Operation). The Dell E6410's all came defaulted to RAID On, which causes a conflict. See Microsoft's Knowledge Base Article Hope this helps someone else out there! 'm stuck in the same loop. I have 10 PC's to image, and no answer to this problem. I requested what seemed to be a hotfix; KB Article Number(s): 981542, but the password doesn't work.

Requested new one couple of times. Still doens't work. Very frustrating that Microsoft isn't attending to this. Wasted a couple of days of time.still without an answer.

I had this problem a while back, it was due to Daemon tools; it had created a registry key for sptd but never set the permissions right. I got it to work finally under that scenario. Now I come back months later to do a similar sysprep on a diff machine, and I remembered the thing about Daemon tools, so I didnt install it. Sysprep fails again, with the same error. And I'm seeing people posting as recent as LAST WEEK about this issue STILL, and look at the first post - it's from 2009?? Is this a joke?

How come this hasn't been addressed or fixed yet? Now I have to go and nitpick the installed programs and trial-and-error out the erroneous one, Ridiculous. Edit: I went and saw Jeff's way of determining the erroneous registry key. Hopefully this solves my issue. Thanks a lot for that info, it's extremely helpful.

Hard to believe that MS still has not officially addressed this? I now have the ACTUAL SOLUTION to this problem. This solution will actually tell you exactly what registry key is causing your sysprep to fail, so then you don't have to slowly install every program until you find the problem -- especially since this didn't work for me because my problem has been intermittent. This issue is caused by certain registry keys that are either: a) Larger than 8kb b) Set with incorrect permissions c) Corrupt in some way For me, the problem was intermittent (same registry key would sometimes cause the issue and sometimes not - must be corrupt sometimes) so it was impossible to tell what program was doing it. Luckily, there is a log you can look at that will tell you exactly what registry key is erroring out.

Here are the steps for getting the log you need to see: When you see the error message, do the following: 1.) Push Shift+F10 to get to a command prompt 2.) Navigate to C: windows Panther 3.) Find the Setup.etl file and find a way to copy this file off of the system (I copied it to the D: partition and used Ghost to gather that partition and get the file off) 4.) Copy the setup.etl file from the corrupted system to another computer that has Windows 7. Put it on the root of C: for easiest access.

5.) Open a Command Prompt on the Windows 7 computer. 6.) Navigate to the root of C: (or wherever you saved the file) 7.) Type 'tracerpt setup.etl -o logfile.csv' 8.) Close the command prompt and open up logfile.csv in your text editor of choice. 9.) Look through the log file (towards the end probably) for messages that say 'Failed to process reg key or one of it's decendants' For me, the exact eror looked like this: 'Failed to process reg key or one of its descendants: [ REGISTRY MACHINE SOFTWARE ESET ESET Security CurrentVersion Plugins 01000200 Profiles @My profile]' If you search for 'reg key' or 'failed to process' you should find the failure. 10.) Remove this software from your image, or find out how to get the registry key that is failing to work properly. After this, you should be able to properly identify any problem keys and remove/workaround them on your image. Jeff, This solution also worked for me. Thank you for providing it to us!

It has been a frustration and taken a lot of time from me. One thing I did differently that sped things up a little was this (starting from #3 on your instructions above): 3.) ( Rather than copying the file to another computer, perform these steps on the computer you are getting the error on) Type 'tracerpt setup.etl -o logfile.csv' 4.) Type 'notepad' 5.) Browse to C: Windows Panther 6.) Change the File Type to 'All Files' 7.) Open 'logfile.csv' 8.) Follow Jeff's instructions starting on step 9 from above. -------------- I started command prompt by pressing [Shift] + [F10] at the error After looking at the logfile.csv (as per instructions above), I discovered the registry path that was giving me the error: (80000005): Failed to process reg key or one of its descendants: [ REGISTRY USER.DEFAULT Software Microsoft IdentityCRL DeviceIdentities production] I deleted the registry key 'production' and the computer continued the /oobe process without errors after the reboot. Thanks again Jeff, Joe Allred. Thanks HoHumDiddleDee This solution works just go to find away to implement into Unattended.XML for proper unattended installation as this one has been a fully attended installation in my opinion. So ya happy days.

THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1. When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11 2. Open the REGEDIT 3. Navigate to hklm system setup 4. Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6. Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7.

Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8. Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9.

Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10. Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11. Exit REGEDIT and reboot. The Below solution worked for me, Thanks The problem seems to be the registy entries made by sysprep, which probably should have, but didnt, change at the first reboot. To confirm, after a clean image capture with WDS and install, upon the first reboot the system will not go past the message: 'Windows could not finish configuring the system.

To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1.

When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11 2. Open the REGEDIT 3. Navigate to hklm system setup 4. Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6. Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7.

Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8. Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9. Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10.

Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11. Exit REGEDIT and reboot The installation now continues on the the login, and in my case it ran the i got my OOBE.

I am just using this to back up a loaded system for quick recovery in case of a failure (which i just had) so i can live with doing that manually. I am sure there's much brighter bulbs out there that can figure out how to implement that in an unattended manner for general use.

Have a great day. And as a side note, if this works for you too, why not post it in a forum you've been to, as i have seen a hundred different forums with people having the same problems.

Hi Jeff and Joe Thanks to you both, with the help of both of your suggestions i might to be able to come to my solution. I'm sysprepping windows 7 starter for few days and i am having the same registry error as Joe: [ REGISTRY USER.DEFAULT Software Microsoft IdentityCRL DeviceIdentities production] I tried many different ways, but this registry error was keep haunting me. Eventually i got so frustrated that on the post sysprep error screen: • pressed Shift+F10 • on the prompt typed regedit.exe • Deleted the funny looking folder with in IdentityCRL specially production folder • closed the regedit and restarted • the machine went through all the way, great! The problem is i need to deploy this custom windows 7 starter and these registry errors aren't very satisfying. I haven't tried this but do you guys think that after step 4 (as above) instead of restart if i can shutdown, then capture the image? Would the post syspreping process still work as normal when its deployed? Thanks ZQ I delete the e.

The problem seems to be the registy entries made by sysprep, which probably should have, but didnt, change at the first reboot. To confirm, after a clean image capture with WDS and install, upon the first reboot the system will not go past the message: 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1.

When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11 2. Open the REGEDIT 3.

Navigate to hklm system setup 4. Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6. Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7. Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8. Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9. Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10.

Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11. Exit REGEDIT and reboot The installation now continues on the the login, and in my case it ran the i got my OOBE. I am just using this to back up a loaded system for quick recovery in case of a failure (which i just had) so i can live with doing that manually.

I am sure there's much brighter bulbs out there that can figure out how to implement that in an unattended manner for general use. Have a great day. And as a side note, if this works for you too, why not post it in a forum you've been to, as i have seen a hundred different forums with people having the same problems. This one worked for us:).

The Below solution worked for me, Thanks The problem seems to be the registy entries made by sysprep, which probably should have, but didnt, change at the first reboot. To confirm, after a clean image capture with WDS and install, upon the first reboot the system will not go past the message: 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1. When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11 2. Open the REGEDIT 3. Navigate to hklm system setup 4.

Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6. Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7. Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8. Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9. Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10. Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11.

Exit REGEDIT and reboot The installation now continues on the the login, and in my case it ran the i got my OOBE. I am just using this to back up a loaded system for quick recovery in case of a failure (which i just had) so i can live with doing that manually. I am sure there's much brighter bulbs out there that can figure out how to implement that in an unattended manner for general use. Have a great day. And as a side note, if this works for you too, why not post it in a forum you've been to, as i have seen a hundred different forums with people having the same problems.

Well guys after all those issue *windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer* I had followed this guide mentoned up there and i just had more work to do. So notk worked for me and for many too. And in my installation i had, utorret CCleaner Easeus Partition Master and backup free, Foxit, coretemp, MS office 2007, UltraiSo, winrar and you Unistall, and finally *ESET Smart Security* ESET had give me all this problem that *windows could not finish configuring the system.

To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer*, i booted in safe mode and unistalled it, rebooted and BINGO, OOBE screen and the rest of my setup was smooth like baby but:). The two things that I have run into have been: 1 - Ensure computer is not/has not been joined to a domain at any point. Even joining and removing can cause some headaches 2 - Ensure that when you deploy the image that the drive is being partitioned properly. If it does not make the ~100MB partition prior to the main partition you will have trouble. This can be made part of the deployment process using Windows Deployment Services (WDS) and Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) using Windows Server 2008. I highly recommend this multi-part video from PeteNetLive.com on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6KppyXtiDk. Hello Clearly there are many possible causes to get this error, none of the above worked for me.

1.Converting setup.etl to csv, I did not have the any errors. No software issues. Did not install A120% or others. 3. No printers were added. I always join my machines to the domain (but never login as a domain user) and never had an issue until this one computer. I do this to add a group to the local adminstrators group and also so the machine policies apply including the WSUS server information. Finally i figured it out.

I was lazy with this one machine and enabled the admin account with a blank password. When you run sysprep and you have a blank administrator password, the Administrator account gets disabled because it doesn't meet the password requirements of my domain policy. This is why everyone says don't join it to the domain. When you get the restart error, push shift F10, type MMC add the 'computer management' snap in. Set a local administrator password and enable the account. Reboot and you are done!

I hope this helps some! The problem seems to be the registy entries made by sysprep, which probably should have, but didnt, change at the first reboot. To confirm, after a clean image capture with WDS and install, upon the first reboot the system will not go past the message: 'Windows could not finish configuring the system.

To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1. When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11 2.

Open the REGEDIT 3. Navigate to hklm system setup 4. Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5.

Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6. Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7. Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8.

Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9. Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10. Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11. Exit REGEDIT and reboot The installation now continues on the the login, and in my case it ran the i got my OOBE. I am just using this to back up a loaded system for quick recovery in case of a failure (which i just had) so i can live with doing that manually. I am sure there's much brighter bulbs out there that can figure out how to implement that in an unattended manner for general use. Have a great day.

And as a side note, if this works for you too, why not post it in a forum you've been to, as i have seen a hundred different forums with people having the same problems. After following this, My computer had a Login screen, not OOBE screen. Which i cannot login(btw administrator is disabled), which i think by doing this the computer will stop 'syspreping' anyway.

This is not working for me.(I'm doing sysprep and this stopped it.) Hi, i followed your instructions but it didnt work for me.how do i change the settings back to how they were???? The problem seems to be the registy entries made by sysprep, which probably should have, but didnt, change at the first reboot. To confirm, after a clean image capture with WDS and install, upon the first reboot the system will not go past the message: 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1. When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11 2.

Open the REGEDIT 3. Navigate to hklm system setup 4.

Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6. Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7. Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8.

Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9. Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10. Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11. Exit REGEDIT and reboot The installation now continues on the the login, and in my case it ran the i got my OOBE. I am just using this to back up a loaded system for quick recovery in case of a failure (which i just had) so i can live with doing that manually. I am sure there's much brighter bulbs out there that can figure out how to implement that in an unattended manner for general use. Have a great day.

And as a side note, if this works for you too, why not post it in a forum you've been to, as i have seen a hundred different forums with people having the same problems. This solution kind of work for me but then when the system completed a new error came: Failure configuring windows updates. Also I was not able to log into the machine since there is no user account created. The problem seems to be the registy entries made by sysprep, which probably should have, but didnt, change at the first reboot. To confirm, after a clean image capture with WDS and install, upon the first reboot the system will not go past the message: 'Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.' THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1.

When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F11 2. Open the REGEDIT 3. Navigate to hklm system setup 4. Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6.

Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7. Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8. Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9.

Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10. Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11. Exit REGEDIT and reboot The installation now continues on the the login, and in my case it ran the i got my OOBE.

I am just using this to back up a loaded system for quick recovery in case of a failure (which i just had) so i can live with doing that manually. I am sure there's much brighter bulbs out there that can figure out how to implement that in an unattended manner for general use.

Have a great day. And as a side note, if this works for you too, why not post it in a forum you've been to, as i have seen a hundred different forums with people having the same problems. Thank you!!!!! That helped me!!!! Just Shift + F11 doesn't worked. I pressed Shift + F10 and typed regedit -->Enter.

Hi I use in first step: THE SOLUTION THAT WORKED 1. When the error message apears, open up a command window with SHIFT + F10 2. Open the REGEDIT 3.

Navigate to hklm system setup 4. Change CmdLine to blank (no value entered) (was oobe windeploy.exe) 5. Change CreateNewQueueOnFirstBoot to 0 (was 1) 6. Change OOBEInProgress to 0 (was 1) (i am guessing that might be AUDITInProgress if that was your sysprep choice) 7.

Change SetupPhase to 0 (was 4) 8. Change SetupShutdownRequired to 0 (was 1) 9. Change SetupType to 0 (was 2) 10. Change SystemSetupInProgress to 0 (was1) 11. Exit REGEDIT and reboot In second step after normal logon I found Error in standard Windows Event viewer system. In my case this problem was caused dell security managent service(s).

I stoped this service(s) and switched to manual and then create wim image by MDT 2012 corretly.