Is it fair to sysprep in shutdown mode through Packer?

Packer
1

Hi
Quick question right here :slight_smile:

I made a Windows Server 2022 gold image thanks to Packer and I use the following shutdown_command:

shutdown_command = "C:\\Windows\\system32\\sysprep\\sysprep.exe /unattend:E:\\sysprep.xml /quiet /generalize /oobe /shutdown"

(Note : i’m doing this for keeping network drivers while syspreping, else, Packer gets hung forever, more details here : https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/issues/4134#issuecomment-424492047 )
The sysprep.xml contains simple stuff mentioned in the link above.

My question is quite simple :
Does making the sysprep in shutdown mode is fair ?
i mean, if i clone this gold image, it will starts properly and ask for OOBE details (admin password etc…) but
does it means that all SIDs are re-generated ?

Thanks a lot !

2

Well, after reading a lot of documentation and testing, i’m able to say that it seems fair to do it that way.

Explanation:
According to this website https://thesolving.com/server-room/when-and-how-to-use-sysprep/ but also many others articles, i understood that sysprep “shutdown” mode clean up the current VM then once the VM will start again (or cloned) it will start on OOBE mode.

After trying some tests, I finally found out that SIDs are re-generated (you can check it with PsGetSid tool) in that way, so it’s pretty fair to use this method.

3

Can you send the full packer template.