Booting a customized Windows 11 24H2/25H2 virtual machine may be blocked by the black screen

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

After deploying and customizing a Windows 11 24H2/25H2 VM, user may encounter a black screen following the first boot. This issue occurs after sysprep and generalization when the Windows VM is powered on.

Affected Windows Versions:
* Windows 11 24H2 builds newer than GA build 26100.1742
* Windows 11 25H2 GA build 26200.6584 and newer

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.x
VMware vCenter 9.0.0
VMware vCloud Director 10.6.x

Cause

This issue stems from a change in the supported account types for Sysprep operations.

Resolution

Broadcom engineering is aware of the issue and is currently investigating.

Workarounds:

Option 1 — Windows 11 24H2 only
Option 2 — Windows 11 24H2 and Windows 11 25H2

Option 1 — Windows 11 24H2 only

1. Use the official GA (General Availability) build: 26100.1742 without any update.
    * This version has been verified without the black screen issue and is stable for customization.
    * Ensure the ISO or base image used for customization is this exact build.
2. If your VM was updated via Windows Update, uninstall the following updates before customization:
    * Refer to the Version 24H2 (OS build 26100) of Windows 11 release information for the update KB list
Note: You can view installed updates via:
      Settings > Windows Update > Update History

Option 2 — Windows 11 24H2 and Windows 11 25H2:

After customization and got black screen:
    1.Open Task Manager by press Ctrl + Alt + Del in the VM web console
    2.Launch Command Prompt
      In Task Manager, select File → Run new task, and in the dialog box, type cmd.exe
    3.Run Disk Check
      In the Command Prompt window, execute the following command:
       chkdsk /r %SystemDrive%
      When prompted to schedule the disk check for the next restart, type Y and press Enter.
    4.Restart the Windows VM
      Reboot the Windows and allow the chkdsk utility to perform the full disk scan and repair.
    5.After the disk check completes and the system restarts, reboot once more to ensure all repairs and configurations are properly applied.

 

Additional Information

Perform Windows Updates after the customization process is complete.  This avoids compatibility and boot-time issues due to the update behavior changing pre-deployment system state.