MED-V Solution: A Windows XP Image may not Auto-logon even after configuring it to do so in the VM Preparation Tool

We’ve started to run into this issue every now and then so I wanted to give it a quick mention here just in case you happen to see it.  What happens is that you may run into an issue where you’ve set up a workspace with a Windows XP image and you discover that the automatic logon feature is not working when you launch the workspace for the first time to test or deploy it. 

Instead, the Virtual machine will become visible and prompt you to logon rather than logon automatically to continue the VM setup process.  This may happen even if you have enabled this using the VM preparation Tool within MED-V with the correct username and password.

This can happen if you SysPrep the machine after running the VM preparation tool because SysPrep over-writes the registry setting that the MED-V VM Preparation Tool sets inside of the Virtual Machine.

What must be done to prevent this from happening is to configure a SYSPREP.INF with the following settings under the [GuiUnattended] field:

AdminPassword
AutoLogon
AutoLogonCount
EncryptedAdminPassword

An example appears below:

[GuiUnattended]
AdminPassword = "TG33hY"
AutoLogon = Yes
AutoLogonCount = 3
EncryptedAdminPassword = Yes

For more information regarding the syntax of the SYSPREP.INF file, please refer to the DEPLOY.CHM file found in the Windows XP Deployment Tools.

Deployment Tools for Windows XP SP 2 can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=3e90dc91-ac56-4665-949b-beda3080e0f6

Deployment Tools for Windows XP SP3 can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=673a1019-8e3e-4be0-ac31-70dd21b5afa7

Steve Thomas | Senior Support Escalation Engineer