Guest Customization fails to complete on Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2012 virtual machine in a VMware vCloud Director vAPP

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When deploying a new Windows Server 2008 R2 or 2012 virtual machine in a vCloud Director vApp, the deployment completes but sysprep fails to complete
  
  
• In the setupact.log file, located at C:\Windows\Panther, you see entries similar to:
  
  Info [0x0f006c] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:Running DLLs listed in registry for phase 3
  Info [0x0f008a] SYSPRP RunRegistryDlls:Retrieved section name for this phase as Cleanup
  Warning [0x0f008f] SYSPRP RunRegistryDlls:Registry key is either empty or malformed: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\SysPrepExternal\Cleanup
  Info [0x0f00ad] SYSPRP WinMain:Processing 'generalize' extrenal provider request.
  Info [0x0f006c] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:Running DLLs listed in registry for phase 1
  Info [0x0f008a] SYSPRP RunRegistryDlls:Retrieved section name for this phase as Generalize
  Warning [0x0f008f] SYSPRP RunRegistryDlls:Registry key is either empty or malformed: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\SysPrepExternal\Generalize
  <YYYY-MM-DD> <time>, Info [0x0f003f] SYSPRP WinMain:Processing 'cleanup' internal provider request.</time>
  
  
• In the setuperr.log file, located at C:\Windows\Panther, you see entries similar to:
  
  [0x0f0082] SYSPRP LaunchDll:Failure occurred while executing 'C:\Windows\System32\wevtapi.dll,EvtIntSysprepCleanup', returned error code 4201[gle=0x00001069]
  Error [0x0f0070] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:An error occurred while running registry sysprep DLLs, halting sysprep execution. dwRet = 4201[gle=0x00001069]
  Error [0x0f00a8] SYSPRP WinMain:Hit failure while processing sysprep cleanup providers; hr = 0x80071069[gle=0x00001069]

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 5.5.x
VMware Cloud Director 5.1.x

Cause

This issue occurs when the guest operating system time is not correct.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, ensure to:

• Ensure that the ESXi host is configured for NTP. For more information, see Configuring Network Time Protocol (NTP) on ESX/ESXi hosts using the vSphere Client (2012069).
• Check that the synchronization of the ESXi hosts to the NTP server is functioning properly. For more information, see Verifying time synchronization across an ESX/ESXi host environment (1003736).
• Ensure that the guest operating system is within two seconds of network time.

Additional Information

For more information on the location of the guest operating system logs, see Locations of sysprep log files (2001932). Verifying time synchronization across an ESX/ESXi host environment
Troubleshooting guest operating system customization issues using VMware vCloud Director
Locations of sysprep log files
Configuring Network Time Protocol (NTP) on ESX/ESXi hosts using the vSphere Client