This article provides information on setting up the sysprep files for use with VMware in Windows Server 2003.
When deploying a virtual machine through a vCenter Server running on Windows Server 2003, the customization option is not available.
This issue occurs when the subfolders within the %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep
folder do not have the appropriate sysprep files for the version of Windows you are trying to deploy. The default directory for the sysprep files is %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep.
For Windows Server 2003 the default directory_path is %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Sysprep\ which generally translates to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Sysprep\
The ProgramData
folder has subfolders for each of your Windows operating system. You must extract and unzip the Deploy.cab
from all the Windows installation DVD's SUPPORT\TOOLS
folder and place the files in the appropriate folder within the %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Sysprep\ folder.
Within a Windows Server 2003 64-bit operating system, the \SUPPORT\TOOLS\deploy.cab
file of the installation media has these files:
deploy.chm
factory.exe
readme.txt
ref.chm
setupd.exe
setupmgr.exe
sysprep.exe
wininf_guide.doc
The subfolders within the %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Sysprep\ folder are:
2k
svr2003
svr2003-64
xp
xp-64
If the machine to be deployed has a 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003, you must place the sysprep files (contents of deploy.cab
) within the %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Sysprep\srv2003-64
folder.