Ghost Solution Suite

Hi there,

I'm hoping one of you guys can help me.  We've just purchased Ghost Solution Suite and I'm receiving the following error after firing an image off to a system:

"Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize].  The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied.  The error was detected while processing settings for componenent [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup]."

I'm using Ghost Solution Suite 2.5, version 11.5.1.2266 which is installed on Windows Server 2003. 

The original image is from a Windows 7 x64 Professional system and I'm sending that to a a system with windows 7 x64 installed.  The sytem hardware is identical to the original.

This error comes up after the imaging seems to have completed.  The system restarts and goes through the setting up devices, which win 7 does when first starting.  If I click OK on this error the computer restarts and brings up another error:

"The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error.  Windows installation cannot proceed.  To install Windows, click "OK" to restart the computer, and then restart the installation."

From this, its a continual loop of restarting.

I've attached a screenshot of the Event Log of this task.

I'm new to Ghost Solution Suite and have not done any editing to sysprep or unattend files - i've used soley the options available within the Ghost Console Interface.  I have previous experience of Norton Ghost, imaging OS X etc.

From the error, it appears that a windows configuration on the original computer cannot be transferred to the 2nd computer.  Has anyone had any experience with GSS not being happy with certain configuration settings?

This seems to be confirmed as I fired a completely clean win 7 x64 install to the same system successfully.  I'm in the process of going through programs/ settings that i think may affect it (i.e: Faronics Deep Freeze) but as the original image is 80GB its considerably time consuming to change 1 setting / uninstall one program, make and image and then fire an image to the computer.

The computer i'm making the image from was connected to a domain but was removed prior to taking the image.

Thanks for reading.  If there is any other information that I can provide to help, please let me know.

Regards,

Tom

What licensing model are you using for Win 7 ?  

Are you using KMS servers or an individual MAC key for each installation?  I would typically expect you to use Sysprep to clear all registration information from your build before imaging as you cannot just deploy images of Win 7 using MAC keys without breaching the MS license.

The standard Win 7 install also consists of two partitions, both of which need to be present for an installation to work correctly. Is your imaging duplicating this structure?

There are a number of threads and articles pertaining to Win 7 which you can find with the search engine which will also help you. As they say in the UK, fill yer boots!!

Hi EdT,

Thanks for the reply.  We are using KMS.  You make a very valid point here though, I will need to get my head round sysprep for this point at least.  I'll get searching for these articles.

Yes, the imaging is covering the complete drive so it should be taking the initial partition too.  This seems to be working as the clean win 7 imaging worked.

Thanks again!

Tom

Can I confirm that WinPE is being used as your boot environment?

Hi EdT,

Yes, we are using winPE.

Regards,

Tom

Hey Tom,

I have the exact same problem you are reporting.  I've got a Windows 7 x64 system on an Intel D975XBX2 motherboard and am trying to move the image to a new Asus Rampage III Extreme system.  I can restore the image fine on the new system and select the Restore Anywhere option.  The system reboots on the new image and Windows Setup is automatically invoked as expected.  The looking for new drivers section completes fine.  Then I get the dreaded error:

"Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize].  The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied.  The error was detected while processing settings for componenent [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup]."

After the forced reboot, all I get is the following over and over:

"The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error.  Windows installation cannot proceed.  To install Windows, click "OK" to restart the computer, and then restart the installation."

I've tried everything, but can't get past this error.  Stupid Windows 7 installation disk won't let you do an in-place Upgrade from the DVD; you have to already be booted in Windows to do it.  How stupid is that??  An inplace upgrade is a time honored tradition to un-screwing an f'd Windows install.  Why would they prevent that?

Anyway, if you've found away around this whole situation, I'd be happy to hear it.  I used to be a big proponent of Symantec Ghost and System Restore, but after this weekend, I think I'll look for another solution.  This is rediculius.  I've spent literally two whole days trying to restore this system.

Thanks,

Matt

If you google on "Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize]"  then you will find many hits as this is quite a common problem with Microsoft's handling of the unattend file. A sample thread can be found here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistadeployment/thread/c241c9cf-6507-4126-8af3-5c7d1e00dd73/

There are a number of possibilities such as license key errors or computer name errors that users have reported as causing this. 

I have the same Problem with a Small Business Server 2008 and BESR 2010.

I want to restore it on another Mashine with different Hardware and i also get this error:

"Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass [specialize].  The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied.  The error was detected while processing settings for componenent [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup]."

After the forced reboot, all I get is the following over and over:

"The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error.  Windows installation cannot proceed.  To install Windows, click "OK" to restart the computer, and then restart the installation."

What can i do. I only have the Recovery CD and the Recoverypoint File.

Where can i find this unattended.xml before i do the recovery?

Personally, I would never try to move an image to different hardware as there are enough things that can go wrong on an operating system without adding in the possible conflicts of different drivers and associated DLL conflicts. New system, build it from scratch, and reinstall your key applications, adding any backed up databases as required. This is often a lot quicker than wasting time trying to make sense of Microsoft's error messages when Sysprep runs up against something that it cannot handle.

Juergen - you should look in the Sysprep folder for the unattended.xml file, if I recall correctly. The folder is not present normally, it is added when the machine is sysprepped prior to imaging the machine for deployment elsewhere.

Hi,

my problem was solved here:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/besr-2010-recovery-error

The trick is to deactivate "Mini-Setup" in a "hidden" menue.

You can reach this by pressing Shift+CTRL when activating "Restore Anywhere".

I dont think that you can setup a Server faster ( i needed 2 hours) if time matters.

So this means that you are basically cloning the hard disk and not running Sysprep. Therefore as long as the necessary drivers for your new system are available for plug and play to find, this should succeed.

Out of interest, did you have to re-activate Server 2008 after cloning, or are you running the volume license edition?

I had to start the server in safe mode to install the drivers and then reactivate windows sbs 2008.

Thx again!