Installing the Sysprep Tool for Windows 2003 Server

It’s not that clear, at least it wasn’t to me , how to install this tool, so I’ll describe my steps here.

The version of the tool you install has to match the version of the OS you are running, so if you’re running Windows Server 2003 SP1 you need the Sysprep tool to match that version. Likewise if you’re running Windows Server 2003 SP2 you need the SP2 version of Sysprep.

Before you use the sysprep tool, you first need to install the Hotfix available from Microsoft, if you’re using Windows Server 2003.

Having done that you need to extract the deployment files from the deploy.cab file found on your W2K3 installation media/iso, or included with your SP1 or SP2 media/iso. Extract these files to something like C:\Sysprep.

You can create a sysprep.inf file manually or use the setupmgr.exe file to create the answer file interactively, and having done that you can then run sysprep itself.

Preparing a Virtual Machine as a Template using SysPrep

Here’s 2 great articles describing how to prepare a virtual machine for use as a template VM, the article discuss’s using Microsoft Virtual PC, though the content is valid if you’re using VMWare or some other virtualization product.

Here’s the first link, and here’s the second.