| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="sysprep">
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| 4 | <title>Automated Windows System Preparation</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p> Microsoft offers a system preparation tool called Sysprep, to prepare a Windows system for
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| 8 | deployment or redistribution. Some Windows releases include Sysprep on the installation
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| 9 | medium, but the tool is also available for download from the Microsoft website. In a standard
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| 10 | For most Windows versions, Sysprep is included in a default installation. Sysprep mainly
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| 11 | consists of an executable called <userinput>sysprep.exe</userinput> which is invoked by the
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| 12 | user to put the Windows installation into preparation mode. </p>
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| 13 | <p>
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| 14 | The Guest Additions offer a way to launch a system preparation
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| 15 | on the guest operating system in an automated way, controlled
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| 16 | from the host system. See
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| 17 | <xref href="guestadd-guestcontrol.dita">Guest Control of Applications</xref> for details of how to
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| 18 | use this feature with the special identifier
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| 19 | <codeph>sysprep</codeph> as the program to execute, along with
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| 20 | the user name <codeph>sysprep</codeph> and password
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| 21 | <codeph>sysprep</codeph> for the credentials. Sysprep is then
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| 22 | started with the required system rights.
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| 23 | </p>
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| 24 | <note>
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| 25 | <p>
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| 26 | Specifying the location of <userinput>sysprep.exe</userinput> is
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| 27 | <b outputclass="bold">not possible</b>. Instead the
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| 28 | following paths are used, based on the Windows release:
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| 29 | </p>
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| 30 | <ul>
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| 31 | <li>
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| 32 | <p><filepath>C:\sysprep\sysprep.exe</filepath> for Windows XP
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| 33 | and earlier
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| 34 | </p>
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| 35 | </li>
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| 36 | <li>
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| 37 | <p><filepath>%WINDIR%\System32\sysprep\sysprep.exe</filepath>
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| 38 | for Windows Vista and later
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| 39 | </p>
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| 40 | </li>
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| 41 | </ul>
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| 42 | <p>
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| 43 | The Guest Additions will automatically use the appropriate
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| 44 | path to execute the system preparation tool.
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| 45 | </p>
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| 46 | </note>
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| 47 | </body>
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| 48 |
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| 49 | </topic>
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