Jeff Harris

Hi Ted, I can confirm that there were some instances observed where the "SmartDeploy" service was stuck on 'Starting" on systems deployed with .3060. This is a service that's used in deployment and should be expected to be disabled, and not running. To be clear, this is different than the "SmartDeploy Enterprise Client Service" service that will only be present if the option to install the Client was enabled in the Answer File, or manually installed after deployment. This service should be set to Automatic (Delayed), and running.

Our official recommendation is to always install the version of Windows 10 that you want to deploy, direct from ISO. In-place upgrades often cause problems. These are problems that are usually too complicated to bother fixing, (Or the update simply broke sysprep) resulting in building a new Reference VM anyway. That being said, I have tested (as I usually do) performing an in-place upgrade to v1909 and capturing and deploying my test image successfully. I should note, that this was a VM with zero additional software installed. I would make a back-up of your virtual machine before trying the update and capture/deployment. (You can use snapshots, you'll just need to use a warm capture to capture your image.)

You won't be able to initiate any actions from the console to clients that appear greyed out like that. It may be that the service needs restarting, or the required ports aren't open. (Sometimes restarting the Console service helps too) When you look at the services, you should see the SmartDeploy service only if an image was deployed to that device with SmartDeploy. (It's only used during deployment.)The service below that, the SmartDeploy Enterprise Client Service should be running, if the client was installed. You can check the ports using these PowerShell commands; Test-NetConnection -Port 8734 -ComputerName [Your SD Console Host IP/Name] -InformationLevel Detailed Test-NetConnection -Port 8735 -ComputerName [Your SD Console Host IP/Name] -InformationLevel Detailed

Melissa, this would certainly require looking at your deployment logs to determine what's happening. You should certainly see that the OEM installation of Windows is removed after deployment. Please collect logs and email support and we'll take a look and help you out.

Aaron; I'm not seeing a reference to a certificate, which means you may be having an unrelated issue. Please email Support so that we can request logs and investigate what's going on with your SmartDeploy console.

Unfortunately, we cannot target partitions like that. I've not heard of anyone using or testing SmartDeploy in this scenario, but I do not recommend testing on this machine, assuming that it's a production workstation.

Hi Melissa, SmartDeploy doesn't quite work like that. You can use additional features to back up and restore the user data on that system, and install applications post-deployment, but SmartDeploy will otherwise erase the contents of the disk, apply the image captured from your Reference VM, and then restore the user data and install additional application packs (if configured to do so.)

Jolew, Please email support to open a new ticket. We'd likely want to connect you with a member of the dev team to look at your console host for more information.

The place to look for information is C:\Windows\Debug\NetSetup.log. If this file isn't present, it's possible that the sysprep mini-setup is crashing, which means we'd want to look at the image source.

Hey Tim, I'm not sure what you mean by repository, but we do have a growing list of Application Packs available for download via the console.

Ariel, It's possible that the Deployment Package you're using for console-initiated deployments may not have the Platform Pack for that device, if it was made before you downloaded the Platform Pack. Try creating a new Deployment Package, and make sure that you see the Platform Pack for that model in the list in the Media Wizard, and then re-try the deployment.

That action is going to attempt to read the metadata of those files and reflect changes to them in the console. Are you finding that you've made changes to a VM or image that's not being reflected in the console?

Additionally, you will need to download the Platform Pack for that model, and make that it’s selected when you create new WDS boot media, And replace what’s in your WDS host if you haven’t don’t that already. This will include the storage driver that is likely needed.

We see that error often when an image was captured from a Reference VM that had 2 virtual disks connected to it. When this is the case, even if the second disk isn't selected in the Capture Wizard, SmartDeploy will expect there to be a second disk on the physical computer.

When you create your Answer File, you'll be prompted to specify the location of your image, Platform Packs, and Answer Files. These shares do not have to reside on the SmartDeploy console host, they can be anywhere. When you create your Deployment Package, you'll include that Answer File. Any network deployments you start with that Deployment Package will use the paths in the Answer File to find your everything.

Organizing them into folders is recommended, in order to make management and troubleshooting easier. However, it's not required.

Ted; First make sure that deployments are working correctly by testing one of the Application Packs we provide, like 7zip. Then, you'll need to make sure that you have the correct silent installation parameters either for exe or msi. You'll want to test from a command line first. Also, make sure that you're adding msiexec.exe /i to the start of the executable location field. For example: msiexec.exe /i [ApplicationsFolder]MyPack/Files/MyApp.msi

I'd first check to make sure you're on the latest version of SmartDeploy, v2.0.3050. If you're running any tasks to install other software post-deployment, it's possible it's preventing the installation. We've had customers add sleep timers to their custom install scripts to help with this. You can check the Application log in Event Viewer for clues as well.

Yes, it will uninstall silently.

This morning I checked for updates on the virtual machine that I re-produced this sysprep error, a cumulative update (KB4512508) was available. I installed this and found that my VM was once again able to sysprep.

I've confirmed that this update does indeed break sysprep. I've circulated logs with the team, we'll take a look at it but it may be up to Microsoft to correct this. Until then we'll have to ask users to rollback the update before capturing their image.

Dave, First, you'll want to make sure that the client you're pushing the app pack too appears in the Computer Management workspace with bold text. This indicates that the connection is healthy. When you deploy an application pack, it's copied to the client, and extracted to C:\Windows\Temp\!sdspk\Application Manager\appname\Files. You can watch that folder to confirm that the installer files are being copied over and extracted correctly. If they are, then that's a good indication that something is holding up the installation process, or that the arguments in the pack are incorrect and it's not silently installing.

When deploying applications with App Packs, the best place to look for troubleshooting is the Application log on the target machine. That's a good sign that the pack is being copied to the \Windows\sysWOW64\SmartDeploy\Sources\ folder. Since 2.0.3050, the location of extraction is now C:\Windows\Temp\!sdspk\Application Manager\appname\Files. Are other Application Packs installing successfully?

I'd download the SDESetup.exe from SmartDeploy.com again, and confirm that it's 1,395,359KB on disk. Then right-click the exe and click Properties to check for an Unblock button on the General Tab. If it's there, click it and then click OK and try again, Additionally, different anti-virus and other security software has been known to block or partially block the installation, so it may be worth while to temporarily disable it while you install.

You can email support and we can provide you with a script that will handle this for you.