WSUS Heads up

[Asha'man X]

Hey everyone

Just discovered a rather interesting issue in regards to WSUS when you clone computers on a network. We just recently set up 2computer labs running XP SP3, and as usual sysprepped the computers. However, none of them were reporting into the WSUS console afterwards.

After some digging, we found that the client id's in the registry were identical, causing only 1 computer to show up despite sysprep running before the clone.

To fix this, delete the SusClient ID and the SusClientIdValidation entries in this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate

Afterwards, you can sysprep the machine and clone them, and they should show up in WSUS after they have done everything.

I don't know how this would work with Vista and 7, as I have not had a chance to prepare them for cloning yet.

Hope this helps somebody avoid our pain

 

[Obelix]

or just delete the network card in device manager before you shutdown to start cloining...

 

[Asha'man X]

or just delete the network card in device manager before you shutdown to start cloining...

Do you know if this actually works and removes those keys in the registry?

 

[ghalied]

Newsid does all you require, just clone your machine, fir it up, execute newsid and it will do the rest, sorted.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897418.aspx

 

[Asha'man X]

Newsid does all you require, just clone your machine, fir it up, execute newsid and it will do the rest, sorted.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897418.aspx

Newsid has been retired, and was done so a while back. The thing is, Sysprep changes the sids for domain use, no problem. It is the key in the registry that isn't being deleted, it seems to be something to do with an update to the Automatic Update client in XP.

In the end, not much one can do about it except live with it. Hopefully we'll be changing to Windows 7 soon, which I hope doesn't have this issue.

 

[ghalied]

Point is........it still works.

 

[Asha'man X]

Interestingly, I've had a chance a short while ago to clone some Windows 7 boxes, and it seems they do not suffer this bug that XP has with Sysprep. Then again, 7's Sysprep is another animal, but it works. We recently recloned our one computer room, and despite precautions, we are back to square 1 with almost no computers showing up in the WSUS console.