Comments on: Sysprep Windows 7 – Third Party Anti-Virus

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:38:55 +0000

I have this problem with Norton 2010, not surprising since 2009 is confirmed. It took me a little while to nail down that Norton was causing the sysprep error. As a system builder it is disturbing that we are not able to pre-install AV for our customers who purchase the software and are expecting their new systems to be ready to deploy.

By: Brian Jackson

Brian Jackson — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:08:35 +0000

@Adam: I’m glad you find my post useful. Happy Sysprepping!

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 19:47:50 +0000

Wow, I can’t believe I hadn’t found this post. I am days away from deployment of a Win7 image, and my key stumbling block was Copy Profile using SYSPREP. It just…wasn’t…working (yet I could get it to work on a new Win7 install). Uninstall McAfee — and it worked!

McAfee version 8.7i, Patch 3 FYI.

Thank you for the post, and hopefully word gets out (or vendors fix their products)!

By: daniel

daniel — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:14:16 +0000

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981542

In Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2, you run the System Preparation tool (Sysprep.exe) to build a system image. Then, you try to deploy the system image on another computer. However, the image deployment process stops immediately after the first restart of the other computer. Additionally, you receive a dialog box that states the following:
Windows could not finish configuring the system

Note This issue occurs if the original operating system contains a registry key that is larger than 8 kilobytes (KB).

By: PedroUSA

PedroUSA — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:51:21 +0000

McAfee Enterprise 8.7 caused a failure as well, only when using the sysprep unattend switch for me, which is a must.

“Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation.”

I did remove the GUID and MAC registry entries but the same problem persisted. Removing it completely was the only work around I could find for now.

By: Walkabout Tigger

Walkabout Tigger — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:03:04 +0000

What are the known issues with AVG?
Do these still exist if you use AVGPrep?
Perspiring minds want to know!

By: MarcoR

MarcoR — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 22:05:22 +0000

I was able to successfully deploy a sysprepped image with NOD32 64bit installed. I then further updated my audit mode image and that’s when the problem occurred for me. I would install each app individually and it would sysprep without issue, but once i would build an image with multiple apps, it would then fail. I spoke to MSoft and they imediately tried to say it was an application/antivirus, but tend to disagree. What resolved the issue for me was that I booted the pc into safemode and then let the error “Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation.” I then rebooted and captured a ghost of the harddrive then a wim image…just in case it worked. Save myself the rebuild time. once i captured all of my images, i restarted and it worked. The sysprep process ran fully starting all services, installed all drivers…etc. I uploaded the wim to my WDS and successfully deployed that same build.

By: Yoni D.

Yoni D. — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:39:08 +0000

OK, so here is the update…
I just did a fresh installation of Windows 7 64bit.
Installed NOD32 4.0 updated it and reboot.
When the system came up I just disabled NOD32 engines (Real-time, Email & Web).
I run Sysprep & I let the system reboot.

After configuring the first settings (localization, time, user account, updates & network) the OS came up without any alarms \ errors in the event log & with AV fully working and enabled.

FYI – (Hope that as this post helped me to find out that my assumption about NOD32 was true, this reply of mine will help some of you).

Good passover to the celebrators

By: Yoni D.

Yoni D. — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:11:41 +0000

wow! Thanks for this blog, really saved me and was the evidence that proof the point the ESET NOD32 (v4) cannot bypass with sysprep.

Did anybody tried to do a sysprep with Nod32 v4 while its disabled\turned off?
Because the ESET service is set to automatic, it will start on next bootup of the system

I’ll bookmark this blog, check by my self in the next 2 days and will reply if I’ll not see any reply.

Thanks to you all!

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 02:43:49 +0000

I have the same problem after installing Sunbelt Software’s VIPRE Enterprise. Unlike many in this blog, however, I hadn’t reached the sysprep stage yet. I had installed the Win7 Enterprise 64-bit from my Volume License media and had pressed CTRL+Shift+F3 at the Windows Welcome screen to enter audit mode.

I installed all my drivers and applications (which involved several restarts). After each restart, it would successfully start back up in Audit mode again and I would continue customizing. The last program I installed was the VIPRE Enterprise, which required another reboot. At this reboot, however, I got the dreaded “Windows could not complete this installation” message.

It would really be nice if someone could find a way to recover from this so I don’t have to completely restart from scratch again. Maybe there is no other way.