Guest customization does not run after deploying a vApp with Windows VM on VMware Cloud Director

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• When deploying a vApp in VMware Cloud Director, the deployment completes with no errors. However, guest customization is not completed.
• No errors are seen in VCD.
• Checking the Windows Sysprep logs %windir%System32\Sysprep\Panther\setupact.log these messages are observed:
  
  YYYY-MM-DD 20:47:01, Error                 SYSPRP Package Microsoft.LanguageExperiencePacken-GB_26100.124.233.0_neutral_8wekyb3d8bbwe was installed for a user, but not provisioned for all users. This package will not function properly in the sysprep image.
YYYY-MM-DD 20:47:01, Error                 SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80073cf2.
YYYY-MM-DD 20:47:01, Error                 SYSPRP Exit code of RemoveAllApps thread was 0x3cf2.
YYYY-MM-DD 20:47:01, Error                 SYSPRP ActionPlatform::LaunchModule: Failure occurred while executing 'SysprepGeneralizeValidate' from C:\Windows\System32\AppxSysprep.dll; dwRet = 0x3cf2
YYYY-MM-DD 10:47:01, Error                 SYSPRP SysprepSession::Validate: Error in validating actions from C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\ActionFiles\Generalize.xml; dwRet = 0x3cf2
YYYY-MM-DD 20:47:01, Error                 SYSPRP RunPlatformActions:Failed while validating Sysprep session actions; dwRet = 0x3cf2
YYYY-MM-DD 20:47:01, Error      [########] SYSPRP RunDlls:An error occurred while running registry sysprep DLLs, halting sysprep execution. dwRet = 0x3cf2

Environment

VMware Cloud Director

Cause

• This issue is not due to VMware Cloud Director but because of Sysprep failure in the Microsoft Windows OS.
  
  
• This issue occurs because during the generalize phase of Sysprep — executed as part of VMware guest OS customization — Windows attempts to remove or re-provision user-specific Store apps to create a clean, deployable image.
  If any app, such as Microsoft.<AppName>, remains installed for an individual user profile but not provisioned system-wide, Sysprep cannot remove it properly. This triggers the following error:
  
  

  SYSPRP Package Microsoft.<AppName>.<Version> was installed for a user, but not provisioned for all users.

As a result, Sysprep terminates with error 0x80073cf2, indicating it failed to clean up the per-user app installations.

Resolution

This issue is caused by a failure in the Sysprep process within the guest operating system when removing certain Microsoft applications.

As the affected applications are developed and managed by Microsoft, please consult the guest OS vendor (Microsoft) for further assistance regarding the underlying Sysprep behavior.

If the specific application is not required in your environment, uninstall it within the guest OS and then reattempt the customization process.

Alternatively, deploy a new virtual machine with the required operating system configuration and no additional applications installed, and then convert it into a template.

When deploying a new virtual machine from this template, apply guest OS customization (using the virtual machine name as the hostname) and verify that the hostname is correctly reflected inside the guest OS after deployment.

 

Additional Information

Sysprep fails after you remove or update Microsoft Store apps that include built-in Windows images