Image deployment of Windows 7 with Sysprep hangs at regional settings page

Products

• Deployment Solution

Issue/Introduction

When you try to deploy a syspreped image of Windows 7 the setup process hangs at the regional settings page:

Cause

"Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" component is missing in the oobesystem configuration pass of the xml answer file specified in the advanced settings section of the Distribute Disk image task.

During oobesystem configuration pass, settings are applied to Windows before Windows Welcome starts. This pass is typically used to configure Windows Shell options, create user accounts, and specify language and locale settings. This configuration pass runs because by default the sysprep command is run with the /OOBE option within the imaging tasks of Deployment Solution.

For additional information on Windows 7 Setup Configuration Passes http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744580(WS.10).aspx

Resolution

To resolve this issue add the "Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" component and its sections to the oobesystem configuration pass:

<settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="x86"
          publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS"
          xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
            <UILanguageFallback>en-US</UILanguageFallback>
            <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="%PROCTYPE%"
          publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS"
          xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <OOBE>
             ...
             ...

Applies To
Deployment Solution 6.9 SP3
Windows 7