Customize Windows 10 Image in Audit Mode with Sysprep  

Tolqua said:

Did I miss something in the tutorial? How do I end up with one answer file that incorporates my customisations and relocates the user folders?
Tolqua.

Looks like I did miss your coverage of this - not in this tutorial, but the one in SevenForums, as you say, covers this in much greater depth and shows the whole process.

I've now completed the procedure twice including customisation of the default user profile (Windows Updates and settings, 'all user' programs), redirection of user folders and adding OEM details.

I used Macrium to capture the image and deployed it to a new PC (similar hardware) and completed the OOBE procedure. All was fine except for the cloud sync programs (OneDrive NGSC, Dropbox and Google Drive), but I don't want to go into details in this post regarding these issues as I kind of expected this wouldn't work. What I am surprised about is that logging on using my Microsoft account doesn't sync the settings (plain desktop, account picture, etc). The setting to sync is on and I don't normally have to do anything when logging on this way after a standard Windows installation - it just works so I'm not sure what's going on here.

I haven't activated Windows on the VM or the 'tech' machine, but I did activate on the target PC and it made no difference.

Thinking it might have been something to do with the amount of customisation and number of 'all user' programmes, I went back to the VM and applied an earlier snapshot to effectively turn back the clock to a point just after updating Windows. I then ran Windows Update again to pick up any subsequent updates and reinstalled WADK, completed the procedure by running Sysprep using the new answer file and, finally, rebooting and completing OOBE (on the VM as I wasn't intending to deploy this time).

Result was still the same - I can create a new user with files correctly redirected to D:\Users, but if I try to create one using my MS account, or create a local one then change it to my MS account, it's still the same - no sync of settings.

This is really baffling so I've looked for even small differences between the tutorial and my experience and can only find the following:

1. I didn't ensure the tech machine was isolated from the internet during the build as advised. How important is this?

2. After running Sysprep, my VM shuts down (as per the W7 tutorial), but in this one you say:

6.4) When the Sysprep has finished, close the Command Prompt and shutdown the computer.

The only other thing I noticed when installing the WDK and running SIM the second time around was that there was no long delay while SIM builds a catalogue (so I didn't get a beer ), yet I didn't have to specify the location of the old one either.

Could one of these be the culprit? Any other ideas as to why I'm having this problem?

Tolqua.

Good to have you back, Kari. Thought you'd gone on holiday.

Please note I've actually answered some of my own questions (see my last post), but I have other interesting things to report/ask now I know you're back. I'll wait until you've had a chance to catch up, though.

Tolqua.

The strange issue I've had with failure of MS account to sync settings appears to be related to Hyper-V machines only and nothing to do with the customisation/sysprepping procedure.

I just created a new VM in Hyper-V, dead simple, accepting all defaults and installing Win 10 Pro 64 v.1511 by browsing to the ISO from the setting on the ODD. All went very smoothly and once installed (no customisation in Audit Mode - just a straight install), I changed from a local account in my name to my Microsoft account. The same problem's still there - the desktop background picture and my user pic remain as the default so whatever's causing this is happening to any VM I create in Hyper-V.

I did skip entering my MS account details during Windows install and created a local user account first because this ensures the user folder has my name in full. If I enter my MS account email and password during Windows installation, it creates a user folder using just the alias from my email address. This is a small but irritating detail, but it's not the cause of the problem as I've tried it both ways.

I can also confirm it's nothing to do with verification on of the account on the VM or activation as neither of these has made any difference.

I've searched for details of this issue, but haven't come up with anything similar anywhere.

I'm completely baffled by this one.

Anybody any ideas?

Tolqua.

Thank you for this informative thread and videos Kari and keep up the good work. It will be VERY useful as I am just getting into building my first Windows 10 image.

Hi Kari.

After much testing and head scratching I didn't really get to the bottom of the problem I was having using MS account logins on VMs deployed to physical machines, but since it doesn't happen at all when working with physical machines only I've decided to stick to all local accounts on the VMs and change them to MS accounts after deployment. I guess I can use the procedure in the W7 tutorial to create the user accounts I already know I'll need before SysPrepping, but are there any issues doing it this way? Can I simply delete any unwanted user accounts after deployment (without having logged on as any unwanted user. of course)?

Also, I seem to remember (maybe from the Windows 8 tutorials) that when redirecting user folders, it's better not to redirect the Program Data folders from the default path on the C: drive. Is this still the case? I only ask because both folders are available for redirection when using the Windows SIM to create the answer file.

Tolqua.