After having supported many a customer on the use of Sysprep from the Ghost console, a thought often comes to my mind, "Why is it that the Sysprep answer file that is created for Windows XP machine differs from that of Windows VISTA or Windows 7?".
When we have a look at the sysprep answer file that is used for Windows XP, it is recommended that we could have fields that might be blank in the answer as shown below. They could be randomly left blank. If any of these fields are empty, then when the image that was sysprepped is being deployed the user would be prompted for those values. This seems like the correct process and something rather simple to understand as well.
On the other hand, while creating a sysprep answer file (given below) for either Windows VISTA or Windows 7, it is recommended that all the fields need to be filled up. There is also a necessity present which mentions that the "License file" has a valid Volume license. So here, if an user unknowingly enters an OEM license, then it is bound for sure that the key that was entered there would be no longer valid on any machine. If the fields are not filled up then there is a possibility that the image creation after sysprep is completed fails. Even if the image creation goes perfectly fine, the machine from which the image is being pulled does not start up properly.
Till date I have been searching for a proper explanation, even though there are quite a few people who have given an explanation but none of them has been satisfactory. I thought that if I put up a post here, we could have a discussion that might be helpful to everyone and all could give in their valuable suggestions.
When we have a look at all this, one might come to a conclusion that there is not much use, but we would need to address this and get a solution soon.
Hope this helps someone down the lane. Many thanks, Venkatanathan Swaminathan