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Sysprep - Generalize - SID


I create millions and billions of Virtual Machines - ok, maybe not that many but it feels like it. Everytime I have copied the physical files (VHD/VMC) a number of things must be done if I want to join those virtual machines to my domain(s) - most importantly: the machines SID (Security ID) must be re-generated to be unique and the computer must be renamed of course.

So, heres the thing. Back in the good old days you had to find the Windows CD, find and extract the Deploy.CAB file to you hard drive and then execute the SYSPREP.EXE tool. But, with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 the SYSPREP file(s) can be found below:

%WINDIR%\System32\Sysprep - ready “out of the box”, just waiting for you to go for it!

And this is the important thing (and the reason why I started this blog): If you want to create a new SID, remember to CHECK the “Generalize” checkbox - or else you have to go all over again…


During the following reboot a new SID is automatically generated - and you will have to type in your Product/License Key, provide a new Computer Name, select an Administrator Password etc.

You may have known this already - personally I didn’t because I tend to use the wonderful Sysinternal NewSID tool for this purpose in most cases (it’s much faster)… However, that tool is not officially supported for Windows Server 2008 (or even Vista) at this time - but hopefully it will be soon?

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Written by Jakob H. Heidelberg. Read more great feeds at is source WEBSITE
4 comments.
Read more articles on generalize and sysprep and newsid and security id and sid and Virtualization and vista and Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista.

4 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Eyoel
#1. August 12th, 2008, at 1:12 PM.

I prepared a VM, joined a domain and added the user on the domain to the Admin group, login as the user i just added to the admin group Installed everything i want on the VM and Syspreped it the way it is mentioned above. After it reboot and I provide everything, the domin i joined is no more there, instead it is there as a workgroup, I want to have this domain user to be active after syspreping so that users could log in using that not the Admin, any idea how?

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com CBee
#2. August 27th, 2008, at 3:13 AM.

If you sysprep or newsid a machine, then this machine is changed. The domain-controller (ad or ldap or whatsoever) is not changed and hence the new machine can think it is part of a domain, the domain says now. Windows then only has the option to fall back to a workgroup and uses the old domainname for its name. If you peek in the event-viewer, you might find traces of this around the first boot time after the newsid.

btw: if the first reboot after newsid is without network connection (to the domain controller) then the change is on the moment the dc is in reach.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Patricio
#3. January 14th, 2009, at 1:22 PM.

Muchas gracias por la informacion, me ha sido muy util.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Brad Brown Jr
#4. August 25th, 2009, at 11:39 AM.

Thank you very much for your post. It was instrumental in getting a lab of Vista computers going for our school after we ghosted them.

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