sysprep: limited "generations" on Vista?

[garyfritz]

I've heard from several sources that Vista sysprep is limited in the number of "generations" it allows -- that after 3 syspreps on one image (or successive images on different systems), the 4th sysprep corrupts both the original and the copied system.

But I haven't been able to find verification of this anywhere, and reality prevents me from testing it myself.

Is this for real? Does Vista sysprep work differently than XP sysprep in this way, and are you really limited to 3 syspreps in an image?

Thanks!!

Gary

[garyfritz]

I kept digging and I finally found a mention of this "3 generations limit" rule, here.

But if this is for real, why is it so hard to find any references to it???

[garyfritz]

I found a few places where other people have mentioned a supposed 3-sysprep limit, but no authoritative source that agrees with a simple limit.

There does, however, seem to be a 3-time limit on resetting the activation clock:

There is no limit to the number of times Sysprep can run on a computer. However, the clock for Windows Product Activation begins its countdown the first time Windows starts. You can use the sysprep /generalize command to reset Windows Product Activation a maximum of three times. After the third time you run the sysprep /generalize command, the clock can no longer be reset.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929828 says a fatal error will happen if the Licensing Rearm program runs more than three times, but this can be skipped if you don't need to reset the licensing / registration / activation settings.

Edited March 2, 2009 by garyfritz