Strange behaviour with unattend.xml

[Config Mangler]

I was getting an error with unattend.xml - "Windows could not parse or process unattend answer file for pass [specialize]. section Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup. Can anyone see anything wrong with this section? It was validated in WSIM (for what that's worth)

 

<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.micro...nfig/2002/State">

<ComputerName></ComputerName>

<ProductKey></ProductKey>

<RegisteredOrganization>My Organisation</RegisteredOrganization>

<RegisteredOwner>User</RegisteredOwner>

<TimeZone></TimeZone>

<DoNotCleanTaskBar>true</DoNotCleanTaskBar>

</component>

 

Once I removed this section it carried on. It changed the regional settings to UK-GB which was great but it did not set the Organization or User name. It also set the resolution in Windows to 1024x768 which is wrong as this is only listed in the WinPE pass.

 

I've attached the full unattend.xml

 

Thanks in advance!

unattend.xml

[anyweb]

are you deploying Windows 7 X64 ? that exml is for X86

[Config Mangler]

Yes deploying x86 -

 

I don't know if this is relevant, but to generate the unattend.xml I have to run WSIM on a 32-bit server and point it at the WIM on the 64-bit SCCM 2012 RC1 server. This "feature" existed in MDT 2010 too. Basically you can't catalogue the 32-bit WIM on 64-bit server.

[Config Mangler]

Well, the error in the Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup section was caused by the <ProductKey></ProductKey> line.

 

When I remove this one line I get prompted to accept the EULA after the build which is not ideal. If I remove the whole Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup component it does not prompt me. Sub components of this component process ok. I will probably leave this section out and script the parts it omits.

 

The main problem I have with this is that the SIM validates the XML file and it passes. If you run sysprep with the XML file you can see it specifically checking the specialization section and that passes too.

 

We were getting these sort of errors 10 years ago with Sysprep and unattend.txt. Nothing has changed.

 

The 1024x768 resolution was at the bottom of unattend.xml so that's my mistake.