Tip of the Day: Sysprep's new /mode:vm switch

Today’s tip…

 

Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 Sysprep.exe supports a new command line switch called /mode:vm. 

 

This switch is useful if you are installing Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 in virtual environment like Hyper-V and you are going to deploy the image back to the same virtualization environment.  For example let’s say you have a Hyper-V server and you want to be able to deploy new VM’S quickly.  Here are the steps you would go through

 

  1. Install Windows 8
  2. Configure it the way you want
  3. Optional: Create
    c:\windows\system32\sysprep\unattend.xml to automate OOBE
  4. Run
    %windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /oobe /generalize /shutdown /mode:vm
  5. Back up the .VHD for the VM to location
  6. Create a new VM and attach copy of the .VHD

 

Note:  This switch is only supported for virtual machines.  You can’t mix and match Hyper-V VMs and VMWare VMs.  Also, you cannot deploy this image to physical machine. 

 

Additional Information:  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825033.aspx