XPSP3 RIS reboot issue - FIX

[ST170SP1]

Just thought I would post this as it may save someone some time.

Scenario

Existing RIS server hosting XPSP2 machine images.

When you add a new XPSP3 flat source and RIPREP an image up to the server it fails to build again and continually reboots or comes up with a BSOD 7B.

What’s wrong?

Well, the RIS server is incorrectly detecting the OS source it should be using. Instead of using the XPSP3 source with the XPSP3 image its creating a hybrid machine image by using the XPSP3 image and the XPSP2 source. Hence the very unhappy machine at the end of it.

Fix

One of many I am sure.

When the machine is being built i.e. when the files are coming down from the RIS server a SYSPREP file is formed at the same time. This is used to continue the build routine after the first reboot. This file (SYSPREP.INF) has been build using variables supplied by the RIS server and are wrong, they will point to the SP2 source and not the SP3 source.

During the first reboot power down the machine and mount with PE or another OS and grab the SYSPREP.INF use this to change the resource paths within the images SIF file on the RIS server i.e. replace the RIS variables with the correct hardcoded paths to your XPSP3 source.

Hope this helps someone......

ST170SP1