Sysprep fails during customization with the error: A fatal error occurred while trying to sysprep the machine

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Sysprep fails on virtual machines that were cloned
• When trying to perform a customization on a virtual machine, you see the error:
  
  A fatal error occurred while trying to sysprep the machine
   
• The guestcust.log file on the virtual machine shows that sysprep folder was deleted:
  
  Deleting "C:\sysprep"
  Deleted folder "C:\sysprep

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x

Cause

This issue is caused with a conflict with the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) and VMware Tools. The sysprep action tries to stop the MSDTC service and VMware Tools is trying to start the service

Resolution

This issue is resolved in a hotfix available from Microsoft.

 

Note: The preceding link was correct as of June 28, 2013. If you find the link is broken, provide feedback and a VMware employee will update the link.

 

This hotfix applies to Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows 7.