Thursday, 11 July 2013

C:\windows\Panther\unattend.xml [SOLVED] MDT 2012 Deployment, Windows 7

Problem Explanation

You've created a new image, captured it and attempted deployment and received the error: 

"Windows could not parse or process unattend answer file [C:\windows\Panther\unattend.xml] for pass [specialize]. A component or setting specified in the answer file does not exist."

Alternatively, you've just made a new MDT Task Sequence and slipstreamed updates into it and received the same error.

Symptoms

  • Infinitely looping on first boot
  • Windows has encountered a problem, press ok to restart.
  • C:\Windows\Panther\Unattend.xml Error (described above)
Reasons

The cause of this is simple, it's internet explorer 10.0 which you have installed either within the image or slipstreamed into the image.

Fix [SOLVED]

Actually simple, but only if you know where to look and since you've probably scrolled down and ignored everything I said above, I'll get to the point, follow these instructions:

  1. In your MDT Deployment Workbench, go to your list of task sequences.
  2. Right click the task sequence you are using to deploy out your new image with IE 10.
  3. Go to the properties of this task sequence.
  4. Choose the OSInfo tab and click "Edit Unattend.xml"
  5. Wait about a year for it to load up the catalogue.... (depending on your machine speed, this can take quite a while, this opens the Windows System Image Manager (WSIM)
  6. Go to Unattend -> Components -> Specialize
  7. Choose the Microsoft-Windows-IE-InternetExplorer-Neutral from the list
  8. Find IE-WelcomeMessage
  9. The Status should say false, if it doesn't make sure it does.
  10. Right click this value and in the context menu (the right click menu) UNTICK "write image value" (See Image for a visual aid)

11. Save the Unattend.xml and to be on the safe side update your deployment share (though I don't believe this is needed but it makes you feel better inside)
Reinstall your image onto your client and it should work fine for you now :D

EDIT [17-11-2013 - MDT 2013] 

Having spoken with some of my colleagues I have ascertained that by using MDT 2013 they have not encountered this issue, however if you need to maintain support to deploy Windows XP images then you will not be able to upgrade.
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33 comments:

  1. Unknown2 August 2013 at 16:34

    Thanks for the post. I've been trying to work out what was going on. I'm going to try this out. Then I'll let you know the results. I've been trying to update our image with Office 2013 and IE 10 along with all the updated available to August, but kept on getting as described above.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown2 August 2013 at 17:38

    Yeah it worked a treat! Fantastic stuff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. D. Evans26 August 2013 at 21:53

      Thanks for the feedback, glad to know it worked.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous6 September 2013 at 20:11

    Yet another reason I hate Microsoft. They made IE 10 part of Windows Updates but did not test it enough, and did not have any information on this error. Good work MS.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous16 September 2013 at 16:35

    Fantastic! Works a treat thank you so much, it's been driving us insane!!

    Gotta love step by step solutions.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous17 September 2013 at 05:48

    Thanks for the fix, why could they not go with a silent fail rather than crash Windows install. This was also happening to me on the capture task as well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous17 September 2013 at 07:28

    Thank you! This was getting me really insane. I've lost count on the number of times i have rebuilt my ref-image. Had no thought that IE10 could be the problem. Thanks again for the blogpost! :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous25 September 2013 at 15:31

    Thank you VERY MUCH.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Daniel25 September 2013 at 18:03

    This is a huge bug and might I add time wasting issue. Trying the solution now, if it works this should be front page news.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Daniel25 September 2013 at 22:48

    These settings worked for us, thank you so much for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Daniel26 September 2013 at 00:37

    I had to delete that entire line from the XML file on the Deployment Server in the Task Sequence for the image being deployed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown15 October 2013 at 19:28

      Daniel can you tell me where exactly or how you deleted the line. My xml file already reads false. I'm kind of new at this so I'm not sure where to delete the line you are refering to.

      Delete
  11. Unknown26 September 2013 at 15:06

    Getting the same error. I am unable to open the unattend.xml via MDT but if I manually edit the XML the welcome message is already set to false:


    http://myjmm
    false


    Any ideas?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Unknown26 September 2013 at 16:53

    Removing the entire section fixed my issue:

    http://removedforposting
    false



    But, is there another way to set the homepage to what we want by default for all users (not GPO becuase I want the users to be able to change itf they want)

    I know you can add a post step but not sure how to go about it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous23 October 2013 at 18:11

    Worked great, thanks! After reviewing logs and xml files over and over I didn't find anything that would even remotely think to change that settings. Great post.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous25 October 2013 at 13:43

    Thanks very much! I had used this old guide to start using WDS, and quickly realized that I should roll updates into my reference image. I ran into this exact problem, something that the MSFT Accelerator team should solve themselves! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Unknown14 November 2013 at 20:17

    Didn't work for me get an error when trying to the Edit Unattend.xml "unable to generate a catalog for an x86 operating system image while running on an x64 operating system. Retry the operation from an x86 operating system"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NovaMarc14 November 2013 at 21:00

      That is correct Brad, in order to create a catalog for an x86 wim you will need to add the adk to an x86 Windows 7 machine.

      Copy your new wim file to this machine and you can then open it in the wsim tools and generate the catalog from here.

      Once you have an updated catalog you can place this in your deploymentshare in the same folder as your wim file and you will be able to edit the unattend.xml from the osinfo tab.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous16 November 2013 at 19:50

      Marc, any chance we can see a post on this in the near future. It is an absolute pain since all modern server operating systems are x64 only. There are still some occasions where I need to push out x86 (processor limitations etc) and ideally want them to have IE10 or higher.

      Delete
    3. NovaMarc17 November 2013 at 11:48

      I will look into writing a quick post on this in the next couple of days (work permitting) My advice would be to build a W7x86 VM and use this to generate the catalogs.

      If you are licensed for Server 2012 Standard or higher then you will have licensing to run at least 4 machines on the license, this could include your host machine and then running Hyper-V with a W7 x86 machine within it.

      Alternatively you could take a snapshot of your machine just prior to running sysprep, take your capture image and then once you have a wim you could revert to your pre-sysprep snapshot and install the adk onto that machine then generate the catalog here.

      Delete
    4. NovaMarc18 November 2013 at 23:26

      As promised here is a brief document outlining how to create your own x86 .clg file.

      http://primaryschooltech.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/creating-catalog-from-custom-x86-wim.html

      Delete
  16. Unknown15 November 2013 at 13:51

    Marc,

    My MDT server is on a VM x64 system, so I won't be able to do that. I'll just have to recreate the Windows 7 image and remove the IE10 update before I do the Capture part.

    Thanks for your help!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NovaMarc17 November 2013 at 11:50

      Brad please see my reply above, in essence I would recommend you create a W7x86 vm and put the adk into that, then you can generate your catalog from here, no need to remove IE10

      Delete
  17. Anonymous16 November 2013 at 19:54

    Any information on IE11 into an image? Will I need to do this fix for that as well? We are building a new image next week at our high school and unsure whether or not to brave IE11 for Windows 7. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NovaMarc17 November 2013 at 11:51

      We have not tried IE11 just yet, I imagine the IT Magician will have a post in the very near future if there are any issues as he has a little more time to play with these things.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous9 December 2013 at 09:48

      IE11 doesn't work with the unattend.xml As far as I have tested. But I couldn't figure out which setting makes is corrupt.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous19 December 2013 at 08:30

    Thanks man, it worked great. This issue was about to drive me NUTS! Now I can enjoy my christmas vacation in peace... :)
    Janne L, Sweden

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous23 April 2014 at 08:42

    Hi IT m8s!
    I just wanna say that in MDT2013 it still can be som trouble with this error message..
    A tip for u all, when you open the WIM file and choose to edit the unattended.xml file just run "Validate Answer File" under Tools to see what error you got! ;-) and then change and save. Best regards Mattias O, Sweden

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous27 April 2014 at 23:43

    Thanks!!! After trying different solutions and spending time figuring out, your solution worked!!
    RBA, US

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous30 April 2014 at 13:19

    Thank you. This worked great for me. And thanks for letting us know that it takes a long time for the catalog file to build otherwise I would have thought it was hung up (took about 45 minutes).

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous19 July 2014 at 19:32

    Thanks for this!
    Also an issue with IE11 in my case. But this fixed it

    ReplyDelete
  23. Nuwan12 November 2014 at 14:27

    This is not the solution anymore, the problem is back, now this time we cannot unwrite the value, since its not even written

    ReplyDelete
  24. RustyA18 December 2015 at 19:54

    This still works for me with IE11 and Win7. Have to untick that value on every image I capture, but it works without fail.

    ReplyDelete

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