Ways to change Windows SID without doing it inside the GOS?

[Dave_the_Wave]

We all know the typical path: Clone a VM/template, power on the VM with something like Ghost Walker, sysprep, NewSID, etc.

But can any of this be done ouside the Windows VM, anything not involving starting up the GOS and working with the console screen?

I had a hard time finding other threads about this, all I could find here was this 8 year old thread:

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/269380

I also found "Enable SID Change and Domain Join for Windows Virtual Machine Templates":

https://pubs.vmware.com/appdirector-5/topic/com.vmware.appdirector5.using.doc/GUID-272CE573-EEED-4B12-9634-1AF33CFAD83A.html

But vCloud Director appears to be a "no dogs allowed" club.

So that means the classic ways of SID changing are still practiced? If so, can you recommend your favorite apps and methods?

[ThompsG]

I tend to use the tried and true method of using the Guest Customization Spec and the generate new SID option. Kind of redundant but at least if we had a management utility that based the uniqueness on the machine SID we wouldn't get clashes :smileyhappy:

[Dave_the_Wave]

Wow! And there it is!

Create a Customization Specification for Windows in the vSphere Client

I have no idea why searches didn't bring that up.

[ThompsG]

Ooops - should have screenshotted that for you. Didn't think it would be the thing you were searching for :smileywink:

Glad it helped you though!

[Dave_the_Wave]

A caveat I'd like to add is that for 2003/Xp GOS, sysprep files are required in the vCenter and must be put there manually, as indicated in (1005593):

VMware Knowledge Base

Otherwise, the SID feature should work out of the box for 2008/Vista and up.