Note to self - do not trust any M$ tool... And following short memo: when syspreping WinXP machine check if someone too eager did not install there Windows Media Player 11 first. Since this fraggin' WMP11 does something ugly to msoobe.exe which is a binary responsible somehow for WinXP registration proces. Basicaly if you have WMP11 on XP and you will sysprep it you will not be able to start such system again since msoobe.exe will crush and will not let you start. I had to sysprep a carefully configured machine to be able to clone it to several dozens of other machines. Not for me, for a customer who was so pushy to do it fast that he did not let me test the solution nor clone the backup copy of the system before syspreping and cloning it. Another note by the way - frag tha customer, do a backup before sysprep... It will save your time and/or your ass. Anyway I have cloned ten of those machines just to find out that it will not work. The solution is of course simple - you just need to uninstal WMP11 before syspreping... Yeah, right, before... Since I was actually after when I found thi information I needed to:
- repair Windows XP installation,
- uninstall WMP11 which is not so simple but can be done through
%windir%\$ntUninstallwmp11$\spuninst\spuninst.exe
- sysprep system again,
- clone it again.
This is generally dull work so if you read this save yourself some time and check it first. And make backups... :-)
This blog is not dedicated to any partuicular project or activity but kind of personal diary. I like to write, sometimes too much, so this could be the place I can safely do it without disturbing unwilling readers. I also need a place to save some solutions for problems I encounter in my work so expect some technical things here. They might be not very helpful for others or not very sophisticated ones but I be glad if someone else can benefit from them too.
About Me
Disclaimer: What LWA stands for in my posts?
LWA stands for Lazy (Lame?) Windows Admin which describes me quite good. I am not a natural born admin. I do not have technical education background. But I happen to work as one so I am using my own, not always the wisest or most efficient ways to cope with the Windows reality. And then some of those ways I am going to put here. For reference in the future for me, because I have quite poor memory, and for others. Others can benefit from those ways if they want. But others are concider to be informed that what they find here is not a fully tested and trusted sollutions and there is a good possibility that there are probably better sollution somwhere in the net. So please do not complain, please comment. Comments are welcome of course since I would gladly benefit from those better solution if you have one :-).
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