Sysprep only operating every thirty minutes

[Superispike]

As the title says, I was doing sysprep on my PC so I could transfer the hard drive to a new system. I let it run through the night, through the morning, and I checked the log. I noticed that only every thirty minutes does sysprep take an action. What can I do to remedy this?

[Tripredacus]

Sysprep is not designed for that purpose.

In my experience, Sysprep takes longer on systems with more programs installed. Ultimately it depends on what is installed or what settings were made. My usual course of handling that situation is to remove the program that causes the problem. Typically I will create a disk image prior to using sysprep for any systems with at least 10 programs installed, so that I can easily go back when/if a problem occurs.

As for transferring hard drives between boards... "for the instance of motherboard failure"

>_> being licenses are not transferrable...

I would take a disk image, then put the "copy" disk on the new board, boot it up and see if it works.

[HarryTri]

It won't work without sysprep /generalize (at least that's what theory says).

[Tripredacus]

What is "it" ?

I've never once had to use sysprep to move a disk between boards.

[HarryTri]

I mean the whole thing won't work without sysprep /generalize. That's what Microsoft says. Once I tried to move an imaged disc of Windows XP to a VM and it didn't even boot, it was always giving a BSOD. Of course the similarity or dissimilarity of the old and the new hardware is an important factor. That's all I know and have to say.

[Tripredacus]

Well first of all, there are two separate things being talked about here. First is what Microsoft says about Sysprep, which is following what sysprep is supposed to be used for in the first place, preparing an image for deployment. It is *not* required for an image to work, but you would want to use the generalize switch. Without it, your number one issue is that you would have multiple installations of Windows with the same SID. And NewSID hasn't worked to solve (or mostly solve) that issue since XP. It does not work in Vista or newer OS. There is no good reason to not use the generalize switch when using sysprep, at some point in the imaging process. Typically, to save deployment time, you use it prior to initial capture, but I have seen instances where companies would use it after deployment.

But as stated earlier, moving a disk (or an imaged disk) from a working computer to a different working computer (changing the motherboard) is not what Sysprep was designed for and should not be used for such a thing. Windows XP is a lot easier to move between motherboards, because in the case where you can't get it to boot properly, a repair install often can solve that issue.

[Superispike]

It seems that sysprep worked fine, and my hard drive transferred to my new PC quite fine. Thank you all for your assistance.