Sysprep Windows 7 – Third Party Anti-Virus

Posted

November 13, 2009
by Brian Jackson
Brian Jackson

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Windows 7

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25 Comments

I have run into about 20-30 people over the last couple weeks that were having trouble sysprepping and they all narrowed it down to the same thing; their anti-virus application. It seems that the Sysprep tool is sometimes not working with a lot of the 3rd party anti-virus applications.

Anti-Virus Applications with Known Issues

Anti-Virus Applications 100% Compatible with Sysprep

And yes, you probably noticed that both applications are made by Microsoft, go figure. If anyone notices any other anti-virus programs that are causing issues with sysprep please comment on here. Or if you have workaround for these anti-virus apps and sysprep working together please comment.

Microsoft Security Essentials - Free Alternative

Microsoft Security Essentials - Free Alternative

  • Dave

    What type of issues or problems are users seeing..

    Since I just realized, I haven’t installed a virus package on my 2008R2 mdt server…

  • Neil

    I have ESET NOD32 4.0 installed and after I did the sysprep the ensuing reboot failed with “Windows could not complete the installation. To install Windows on this computer, restart the installation.” If I tell it to restart I keep getting that error message. I don’t know if the AV is the cause of this but I wanted to give a heads up to anyone using it.

  • http://www.brianleejackson.com Brian Jackson

    Thank you for the comment Neil, I am going to add ESET NOD32 4.0 to the list for now until someone tests this working 100%. Good luck!

  • Nick

    I ran into the same exact error with ESET’s NOD32 4.0 antivirus.

  • Jonathan Davis

    This post was a lifesaver — I had been struggling with imaging and profiles for 2 weeks. Saw this post on Tuesday and by Wednesday half of my PCs are now deployed.

  • http://www.brianleejackson.com Brian Jackson

    @ Jonathan Davis: Glad I could help you out. Do you mind posting which anti-virus caused you problems? Thanks

  • Christin

    Hi,

    Tested with Windows 7 professionel 32 bits french, Kaspersky Workstation 6.0.4.1212 french (kav6.0.4.1212_winwksfr.exe), Antivir Avira Antivir Personal 9.0.0.418 english (avira_antivir_personal_en.exe)

    After installing Kaspersky or Antivir, and do sysprep generalize, in the next reboot, alert box appears : « Windows n’a pas pu terminer la configuration du système. Pour tenter de reprendre la configuration, redémarrez l’ordinateur. »

    See Neil message for the translation of the alert box.

    Bye.

  • Carsten Madsen

    I experience the same problem with Windows 7 Professional 64 bits with Kaspersky Anti-Virus 6.0 for Windows Workstations MP 6.0.4.1212(a) installed. After sysprepping the hard disk the installation of the image (from WDS) fails during configuration of services, and the installation enters a reboot loop.

  • http://www.millennia.it John Thorpe

    I can confirm NOD32 4.0 causes the problem and removing it allows a sysprep. This is a massive problem for me as I was supposed to be using it as part of a VMView4 dynamic desktop rollout! Needless to say these desktops can only go out without AV or it appears with a Microsoft AV.

    Am I being cynical when I note that only MS products can deal with whatever MS have put in the Win7 reseal process?

    How many anti-trust cases do these guys need to cut this out?

  • http://www.millennia.it John Thorpe

    Oh and BTW – this also occurs with Windows 2008 R2…..

  • Dan D

    FYI: MalwareBytes works fine with sysprep. I have made several images with it and have experienced no problems.
    Thank you for all the help you have provided with this blog!

  • Carlos

    I faced exact issue also with ESET 4.0 antivirus and ESET 4.0 Smart Security.
    I send a case report to their site but no reply from them yet.

    So I uninstall ESET before sysprep.
    If anyone of you have the solution for this please let us know.

    Thank you so much.

  • Carlos

    I found the culprit

    with ESET, disable the Self-defense feature before sysprep.
    This feature is in ESET antivirus and ESET smart security (version 4).

    It took me several deploy then sysprep.. until i found out this little guy.
    I hope ESET will do something about this

    Thank you

  • Carlos

    After sysprep, windows experienced index is not there anymore…
    Rating returns to “system rating is not available”

    before I sysprep I have already run rate my computer…..
    but after I sysprep it reset again.

    I have already set PersistAllDeviceInstalls and DoNotCleanUpNonPresentDevices to true in my unattend xML file

    Do anyone of you knows how can i resolve this?
    I know its out of the topic……. but can just find the righ blog for this….

  • Gary

    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.

  • Gary

    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.

  • Yoni D.

    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!

  • Yoni D.

    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 :)

  • MarcoR

    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.

  • Walkabout Tigger

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

  • PedroUSA

    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.

  • daniel

    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).

  • Adam

    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)!

  • http://www.brianleejackson.com Brian Jackson

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

  • Scott

    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.

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