Ghost Solution Suite

We have windows 10-64bit machines. Our pc's image & activate fine. Our laptops do not. We are using the Lenovo EliteBook 840 G1 and G3 models. The laptop's lay the image down but they don't activate windows. I'm using the exact same sysprep settings with the MAK key code in pc & laptop master images.  Both capture and deploy all have same settings.  I'm able to manually add a windows key and activate but would prefer to have this automated just like our pc's. Drag and drop an image and walk away.  Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? 

Thanks - 

Barefoot,

Are the jobs completing successfully on the laptops when imaging?

Do you see any errors during the process at all?

On a rare occassion I have an error (Error -2147463168 during configuration process). 99% of the time, the image process completes and shows the green check mark next to the job. Even though it shows complete, when you log in and check activation it will not be active. 

Are you using a custom unattend.xml file when deploying the image?

Presumably your laptops have both an Ethernet connection and a WiFi connection. Try building with WiFi disabled and see if that makes a difference.

In order to activate, the operating system needs access to either your KMS server or to the Internet for a MAK key.  I am speculating that once the laptop is fully built and boots up, the activation process may be trying to take place over the WiFI connection rather than the Ethernet connection, and I would assume there is no valid WiFi connection as it has not been connected to a wireless point.

I am not using a custom unattend.xml file. 

 I have noticed that it is getting a wired ip address (not wifi) after it completes the image process. The wifi network information has already been configured in the image during the build so even if it looked at wifi for connection to KMS server, it should still respond correctly. However, I will try the wifi disabled suggestions.and see if that makes a difference. 

Disabling the wifi did not resolve the issue. I'm still logging in manually and activating the license.  

Are you using a different image for the laptop machines then the desktop models?

If so.. it sounds like sysprep is not accepting the license key as it should automatically be activated if using a volume license. Do you have ethernet connectivity after deploying the image?