Customization of templates or clones in VirtualCenter may fail if third party software is installed

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Customization of templates fails
• Customization of clones fails
• A cloned virtual machine fails to connect to the network
• Network configuration through sysprep fails
• In the C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\vmware-imc\guestcust.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  
  • Rpci: Sent request='deployPkg.update.state 4 101 C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\vmware-imc\guestcust.log@The system cannot find the file specified.
  • ', reply='', len=0, status=1
  • error number 0, The system cannot find the file specified.
    
    

• Converting the virtual machine into a template or moving it to another location fails 

Environment

VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x

Resolution

The customization may fail if third party software is installed in the template virtual machine or on the VirtualCenter server.

The VirtualCenter process uses custom scripts/executables to generate and inject the customized sysprep file from the Customization Wizard into the virtual machine. If any software (such as anti-virus) prevents these processes from running, the customization process fails to run the sysprep in the virtual machine.

To workaround this issue, try one of the following:

• Do not install the application into the template. After the customization is completed, install the software using Active Directory GPOs or other customized installation services.
• After the template is deployed, manually run sysprep within the virtual machine instead of using the customization wizard. For more information, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 302577.
  
  Note: The preceding link was valid of July 14, 2010. If you find the link is broken, please provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the article as necessary.