VMWare Workstation 17 cannot read sysprep'd image ISO

This is weird as hell. When I try to boot into the ISO of my sysprep'd image, the Windows installation menu says no OS found. When I do it in VirtualBOX, Hyper-V etc, there's no problem

James said:

Hi there as a virtual box user myself I can’t really replicate the issue as I usually would, but here is what a website after a bit of Google research said to do:

As it turns out, with certain virtual machine configurations the VMware has the potential of attempting to PXE boot and ends up failing because the user is unable to connect with the VM quick enough and press a key at the Press any key to boot into Windows Installer screen quick enough.

If this scenario is applicable, you can resolve the issue by establishing a boot delay of 6 seconds or higher in order to give yourself the time to act during the Press any key to boot into Windows Installer screen.

Here’s a quick guide on how to do this:

Make sure that any virtual machine and the main VMware application is closed.

First things first, you’ll need a text editor smart enough to let you edit the .vmx file. You can also do this with notepad, but in order to ensure that you don’t end up overdoing any data, we encourage you to download & install Notepad++ (here).

Once you have a reliable text editor installed, open File Explorer and navigate to the following location C:\Users\*YourUser*\Documents\Virtual Machines

   Information

Keep in mind that *YourUser* is simply a placeholder for the name of your Windows user account. Replace it with the name applicable in your situation.

Once you get to the Virtual Machines folder, open the folder associated with the virtual machine that you’re having issues with.

Inside the folder of the virtual machine look for the .vmx file belonging to this VM.

   Warning

If unable to see the extensions go to the ribbon at the top, click on View tab and make sure that the box associated with File name extensions is enabled.

Right-click on the .vmx file and choose Edit with Notepad++.

Inside the Notepad++ windows, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and paste the following line of code:
bios.bootDelay = "6000"

Go to File from the ribbon bar at the top and click on Save. Then, you can safely close the file opened in Notepad++.

Open the virtual machine that was previously triggering the “Operating System not found” error and see if the issue has been resolved.

Good luck,

James

No such thing as bios.bootdelay

James said:

See more here.

As I say you will paste the following line of code, it will not be there as standard.

I tried your suggestion to no avail. I had the boot manager pop up, I chose the Virtual SATA CD ROM option, pressed ENTER and then this screen welcomed me again:

James said:

Inside the Notepad++ windows, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and paste the following line of code:
bios.bootDelay = "6000"

Thanks for the tip - I like to use VMWare to test boot ISOs but the boot menu would flash to fast for me before I could press ESC key. I didn't know you could configure the delay. Thanks!