Question : sysprep and answer file help with Windows 7

Hello,

I am new to the world of imaging desktops for mass rollouts, and I am kinda learning on the fly here, so thanks for your patience.

I have built a desktop box running Windows 7 Professional, created a sysprep.xml file using WSIM from a walkthrough on Microsoft's technet site.  I placed the sysprep.xml file in the c:\windows\system32\sysprep directory, and syspreped the machine successfully by running:

sysprep /generalize /oobe /shudown /unattend:sysprep.xml

Machine successfully syspreped correctly.  I then booted off a WinPE CD-ROM and created a windows7.wim file of the syspreped image.    

I was able to successfully push the .wim image out to a new machine (after formatting the HD and creating partitions correctly) and the machine successfully completed the inital windows setup.  All was fine.  

I now want to make a change to the answer file I created before syspreping the box (I failed to enable the Local Administrator account using the sysprep.xml file, which I want enabled after deploying the image).   I found the changes I need to make to the answer file from another Technet article online here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766343(WS.10).aspx

after making changes to the sysprep.xml file with the above changes, I then mounted the .wim file using DISM, replaced the sysprep.xml file in the windows\system32\sysprep directory, umounted, and then tried to push out the image again.  

The new image succesfully applied to the box, however the changes I made did not take (Administrator account was still disabled).  I checked the sysprep.xml file in the sysprep directory to make sure it was the newly updated on, and it was.  

All of the settings in the sysprep.xml answer file I made were in the oobeSystem section, so I'm assuming these get run after a sysprep'd machine starts it's inital setup right?  Or is that not correct?    

I'd like to be able to make changes to the sysprep.xml file without having to re-sysprep a machine, and re-create a new .wim file each time I make changes.  Is this possible?  If so, am I not doing this correctly?  

Any help would be greatly appreciated.   Thanks!

Chris

Answer : sysprep and answer file help with Windows 7

Yep...Change it to Owner to AuotBVT and try again. Let me know how it goes.