Enable build-in Administrator account in Windows 7 after sysprep in Deployment Solution 6.9

Article:TECH195105

Created: 2012-08-16

Updated: 2012-12-12

Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH195105

Article Type
Technical Solution

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Problem

If a customer has enabled the default Window's Administrator account, the account will be disabled after running the "Create Disk Image" using the [Prepare using Sysprep]

Environment

All versions of Deployment Solution 6.9

Cause

This is not an issue unique to DS. By default, Microsoft disables the built-in administrator account because it is a potential security hole. All DS does is supply a sysprep file to Windows 7 that returns the built-in Administrator to the default state which is 'disabled'

Solution

You can modify a sample copy which is located under \Altiris\eXpress\Deployment Server\Sysprep\standardwes7.xml
You may download the updated 'unattend.xml' attached to this article.
To use a custom unattend.xml, in the Distribute Disk Image task, under [Prepared using Sysprep], there is a [advanced settings], select [use the following answer file].

Attachments

Unattend.xml file which adds a section to re-enable the built-in Adminstrator account in Windows 7

custom7.xml (2 kBytes)

Supplemental Materials

Description

See also: How to prevent Microsoft Sysprep from disabling the local administrator account on Windows 7
http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO42361