Hi. I have a couple questions regarding sysprep and answer files that I was hoping someone could help me out with:
One: I tried using sysprep with an answer file to configure a different product key by adding the Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup component to the Specialize pass and configuring ProductKey setting (I should mention that this was the only setting I configured). When rebooting to the image after sysprep (for testing), it errors out and the image is useless. I’m wondering if I am configuring the wrong setting, leaving blank settings that need to be configured, or if maybe I am adding it to the wrong pass. From what I understand the specialize pass is the first pass to run at startup after running /generalize.
Two: I tried running sysprep again (after re-installing to my test partition of course) without the answer file and everything worked fine. However, I was under the impression that without configuring the PersistAllDeviceInstalls setting in an answer file, all the device drivers would be uninstalled. Yet when I logged on, to my surprise, all my drivers remained. This is a good thing in my opinion, but I want to make absolutely sure that it wasn’t a fluke and that device drivers are not typically uninstalled when running /generalize.
If anybody can help me out with this I would very much appreciate it. Thanks.