Q. The virtual machine may stop responding when you use ADS (Automated Deployment Services) on Windows Server 2003 to deploy a Sysprep image to a virtual machine?

When you use ADS to deploy a Sysprep image to a virtual machine, the deployed virtual machine hangs on the startup screen.

NOTE: If you restart the virtual machine in Safe mode, it hangs after displaying the Acpitabl.sys file name.

This behavior occurs if the Sysprep image uses a Multiprocessor HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer), because a virtual machine only supports a uniprocessor HAL.

To workaround this problem:

01. Install the VSMT (Virtual Server 2005 Migration Toolkit) on the ADS server.

02. Open ADS Management on the ADS server.

03. In the left hand pane, select the Devices node. If the virtual machine has been removed from ADS, add it as an ADS device.

04. Right-click the device entry and press Properties.

05. Select boot-to-da in the Default job template list and press OK.

06. When the ADS Management console displays a Connected to DA status, right-click the device entry and press Run job.

07. Select Create a one-time job and press Next.

08. Select Task Sequence and press Next.

09. When prompted to provide the task sequence file, press Browse.

10. Browse to %ProgramFiles%Microsoft VSMTPatchesSource and select the file for the operating system and service pack that the Virtual Server 2005 is running:

  For Window NT SP6, use 4.0.1381SP6Uniproc.xml.  For Windows 2000 with SP3 or SP4, use 5.0.2195SPnUniproc.xml, where n is the Service Pack number.  For Windows Server 2003 with SP1, use 5.2.3790SP1Uniproc.xml.   For Windows Server 2003 without any service pack, use 5.2.3790Uniproc.xml.

11. Run the job for the device.

12. When the job finishes, set the device in the virtual machine to use boot-to-hd as the default job template.

13. Restart the virtual machine.

NOTE: If you have applied post service pack hotfixes, make sure that the updated Ntoskrnl.exe or Ntkrnlpa.exe file is included the appropriate sub-folder for the operating system, per the VSMT Help file.