Certain Dell models are not enjoying my Universal image

Quazz

@mlnancejr8808 In that case most likely there’s something in the unattend.xml that these computers don’t like. (guessing something to do with user accounts)

For now, can you try the following on one of the Optiplex 755:

When prompted with error unable to complete installation:
Hit SHIFT-F10 to bring up command prompt.
 
type MMC
Click File -> Add/Remove Snap-in... (Or CTRL+M)
Select Computer Management (Double click and Finish on Local Computer)
Click OK
Double click Computer Management (Local) -> System Tools -> Local Users and Groups -> Users -> Double Click Administrator -> Uncheck Account is disabled -> OK
Now right click Administrator -> Set Password...  ->  Set a decent password to get started.
 
Now, restart.  Should be good to go.
 
If this doesn't work try next step:
SHIFT-F10 to bring up command prompt.
type:  CD C:\windows\system32\oobe
type msoobe
enter
Make a generic account and password.  hit finish (if it requests a product key and you have one, enter it now.  if OEM/No key required, just finish).  Set time/date.  Finish.
Restart.
Should be good to go.

source: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/windows-could-not-complete-the-installation-to/bf09c3c5-298b-459f-aed5-4f431b8398f5

mlnancejr8808

@Quazz

These are the steps I followed to build my unattend.xml is there anything I can or need to change to fix this? The second option in what you sent worked, by the way.

Open the Windows System Image Manager (the WAIK executable for our next step)
 In the Bottom Left frame right click Select a Windows image or catalog file.
 Browse to the extracted Windows 7 folder \Sources\install.wim and click Open.
 Now we need to configure these unattended installation configuration. The settings are similar for an x86 installation but I’m going to be focusing on the 64 bit configuration in this guide.
 Under Windows Image expand the section Components.
i. Scroll down to amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP_ (NOT the UX!!)

Right Click -> Add to Pass 3 Generalize
You’ll now see it appear under Components -> Pass 3 Generalize in the Answer File Frame.
Select it, and in the right frame Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP set SKIPREARM to 0
ii. On the left frame scroll down to amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Deployment_neutral
Right Click -> Add to Pass 4 Specialize
a. Expand amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Deployment_neutral
b. Right Click -> Extend OS Partition -> Add to Pass 4 Specialize
c. Select in the middle frame
d. In the right frame set
i. Extend -> True
e. Back in the left frame Expand -> RunSychronous
f. Right Click -> RunSynchronousCommand -> Add to Pass 4 Specialize
g. Select in the middle frame, and in the right
i. Action -> AddListItem
ii. Order -> 1
iii. Path -> net user administrator /active:yes
iv. Windows 7 natively disables the local admin account, we want to make sure it’s turned back on.
iii. On the left frame scroll down to amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_Neutral
Right Click -> Add to Pass 4 Specialize
a. Select and add the following settings to the right frame
b. ComputerName -> *
c. CopyProfile -> True
d. ProductKey -> If you use a KMS server you can enter the generic KMS client key for your copy of windows. Otherwise enter your Volume Activation License key.
e. ShowWindowsLive -> False
10
f. TimeZone -> your current time zone. NOTE the documentation isn’t clear on how to enter these. You need to fully write it out e.g. Eastern Standard Time
iv. In the left frame scroll down to amd64_Microsoft-Windows-International-Core_neutral
Right Click -> Add to Pass 7 oobeSystem
Select in the middle frame
In the right frame.
a. InputLocale -> en-US
b. SystemLocale -> en-US
c. UILanguage -> en-US
d. UserLocale -> en-US
v. In the left frame scroll down to amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_Neutral
Right Click -> Add to Pass 7 oobeSystem
a. DisableAutoDaylightTimeSet -> False
b. DoNotCleanTaskBar -> True
Expand amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_Neutral
a. Right Click -> OOBE -> Add to Pass 7 oobeSystem
i. HideEULAPage -> True
ii. NetworkLocation -> Work
iii. ProtectYourPC -> 1
b. Expand -> UserAccounts
i. Right Click -> AdministratorPassword -> Add to Pass 7 oobeSystem
Set Value – to your desired local administrator account password.
ii. Right Click -> Local Accounts -> Add to Pass 7 oobeSystem
iii. Right Click -> Local Accounts in middle frame
iv. Insert New Local Account
Action -> AddListItem
Description -> LocalAdministrator
DisplayName -> Administrator
Group -> Administrators
Name -> Administrator
v. Set password to match previous administrator password.
vi. It seems odd to add this twice, but otherwise after sysprep it will still prompt for an initial local account name. It may be possible to remove the OOBE section, but I haven’t experimented

mlnancejr8808

It doesn’t look the unattend.xml worked at all for this model. The local admin account was disabled, the drive didn’t extend, and it won’t add to AD automatically. Any ideas? I definitely need this one figured out because we have skids of OP755s going out for student use.

Quazz

@mlnancejr8808 unattend files aren’t my strong suit, but if you post it here (perhaps censor passwords and such) maybe someone can figure it out

mlnancejr8808

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="specialize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <ExtendOSPartition>
                <Extend>true</Extend>
            </ExtendOSPartition>
            <RunSynchronous>
                <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
                    <Order>1</Order>
                    <Path>net user administrator /active:yes</Path>
                </RunSynchronousCommand>
            </RunSynchronous>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <ComputerName>*</ComputerName>
            <CopyProfile>true</CopyProfile>
            <ShowWindowsLive>false</ShowWindowsLive>
            <ProductKey>xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx</ProductKey>
            <TimeZone>Eastern Standard Time</TimeZone>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <OOBE>
                <HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
                <NetworkLocation>Work</NetworkLocation>
                <ProtectYourPC>1</ProtectYourPC>
            </OOBE>
            <UserAccounts>
                <AdministratorPassword>
                    <Value>SomeEncodedPassword</Value>
                    <PlainText>false</PlainText>
                </AdministratorPassword>
                <LocalAccounts>
                    <LocalAccount wcm:action="add">
                        <Password>
                            <Value>SomeEncodedPassword</Value>
                            <PlainText>false</PlainText>
                        </Password>
                        <Description>LocalAdministrator</Description>
                        <DisplayName>Administrator</DisplayName>
                        <Group>Administrators</Group>
                        <Name>Administrator</Name>
                    </LocalAccount>
                </LocalAccounts>
            </UserAccounts>
            <DisableAutoDaylightTimeSet>false</DisableAutoDaylightTimeSet>
            <DoNotCleanTaskBar>true</DoNotCleanTaskBar>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="generalize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SkipRearm>1</SkipRearm>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim://fs1/data/software%20distribution/microsoft/windows%207/sw_dvd5_win_pro_7w_sp1_64bit_english_-2_mlf_x17-59279/sources/install.wim#Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>

Tom Elliott

@mlnancejr8808 I edited your posting because you did not clear out your password and your product key was plainly visible. I also put it in a code statement to make it easier to read/follow.

george1421

When I’ve seen this happen it is because a device driver fails to install. Its been a while since I broke an install, but at the screen where it says setup can’t complete and before it reboots, you can hit something like shift f10 or something like that and break out to a command shell so you can look at the setup files.

Actually I was just pulling the updated driver cabs from dell for win10.
You may want to look at this page: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/2065.dell-command-deploy-driver-packs-for-enterprise-client-os-deployment

george1421

OK I found the steps

On the same error screen press SHIFT+F10 and it will open up a black Window. (a command prompt window)
In the black windows type the word “regedit”(without the inverted commas and hit enter. That will open the registry editor.
In the Registry Editor…
Browse to…
HKLocal machine/SYSTEM/SETUP/STATUS/ChildCompletion, and after highliting childcompletion,on the right hand side check for setup.exe. if the value is 1 change it to
3 (by double clicking on setup.exe and changing the value shown in the box).

Then close the registry editor and then also close the black window.

Then click on OK for the error and the computer will restart and the installation may complete. just try it and let me know if it worked.

That will let the system reboot. Once that is done you can get into the installer logs to figure out what driver did not install correctly.

george1421

Now to moving forward: How do you create your reference image (one for all)? Are you doing that through MDT? If so lets dig into that a bit more.

mlnancejr8808

@george1421 I am building my reference image on a VM and then the unattend.xml in Windows System Image Manager.

george1421

@mlnancejr8808 You are hand editing the unattend.xml file? Eeek…

How are you injecting the drivers? Are you installing every driver for every hardware into that vm or are you injecting the drivers through some other method?

Just for full disclosure I have one image for 14 Dell computers

mlnancejr8808

I am using driverpacks. Placing them in C:\Windows\inf\Drivers

george1421

@mlnancejr8808 said:

I am using driverpacks. Placing them in C:\Windows\inf\Drivers

Again are you installing all drivers for all models? (not being difficult, the path forward is different based on how you answer)

mlnancejr8808

@george1421 No I am not installing all drivers for all models.

george1421

@mlnancejr8808 How then are you deploying to a 755, 380 and 390 system (assuming they would install correctly)?

I’m going to bump this to chat since we can get faster turn around. Look for the red mark next to the balloon comment near your icon at the top of the browser window.

mlnancejr8808

@george1421 This didn’t work.

george1421

OK from the chat session, the OP is downloading the drivers from driverpacks.net and stuffing them into the c:\windows\inf\drivers folder. My bet is that he is missing or have a driver that is close to what he needs but it is crashing.

My recommendation would be to download the driver packs from the Dell using the link I provided earlier.

In addition I can give you some hints on how to load these drivers how we do it.

I have a task sequence in MDT that does this to the reference image on the VM.

REM Create directory to load drivers
if NOT EXIST "C:\Drivers" mkdir "C:\Drivers"
REG ADD "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion" /v DevicePath /t REG_SZ /d "C:\Drivers;%SystemRoot%\inf;" /f

First I create a directory to hold the drivers and then I update the registry to tell the computer to look in the C:\Drivers folder first before looking in the C:\Windows\inf folder. This will allow windows to find the vendor specific drivers first before using the windows built in drivers.

mlnancejr8808

@george1421 What is MDT that you are referring to?

george1421

Now I can tell you in concept what I do. I go to the dell site and download the cab files for each model I want to support. Those cab files contains all of the drivers for that specific model. I use 7Zip and extract the driver files from the cab file. Through the magic of a bash shell script I push the contents of that exact hardwares expanded cab file to the target computer post image deployment. When the sysprepp’d image boots for the first time it finds all of its drivers in the c:\drivers folder.

george1421

@mlnancejr8808 said:

@george1421 What is MDT that you are referring to?

Microsoft Deployment Tools. It is a free tool from MS used to build reference images. Using the lite touch method I build a new reference image every quarter. I just launch the MDT deployment and come back a few hours later with a reference image ready to sysprep.

Certain Dell models are not enjoying my Universal image

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