Avid (sic) readers of the RTFM blog will notice how recently its become a portal for me blowing off steam and ranting about various technical woes I have. You see even a vExpert and certified Guru has their challenges. [Incidentally, I really don't believe in those monikers - expert and guru... show me a guru, and I will show him a problem they haven't seen before...:-) ].

Anyway, recently I had a “challenge” (such is the vague euphasisms that “totally ****ing annoying problems go by these days!). It concerned cloning a Windows 7 (and occasionally Windows 2008) machines. The blogpost about that problem is here, and the error I was getting was this one:

Well, I kinda walked away from this problem in disgust. I decide to use Windows XP for my virtual desktop pools to avoid this kind of ******t. Then I had problems with Windows XP! So it turn back to Windows 7 and this problem.

Anyway I think I found the cause. I did another googlewack. Using the search string of sysprep and the entire string from the offending dialog box. I found this in the release notes for Vi3. Incidentally, this should also apply to vSphere4 as strictly speaking its not a VMware issue.

http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/vi3_vc25u4_rel_notes.html

Customization Specification of Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista Guest Operating System Can Only Be Changed Thrice Successively

Consider a virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista. You can clone this virtual machine with customization, and edit the customization specification of the clone to create another virtual machine. However, only three such successive cloning operations can be performed. ?For example, if virtual machine A is cloned to virtual machine B, virtual machine B is cloned to virtual machine C, virtual machine C is cloned to virtual machine D, and the customization specification of the guest operating system is edited for every clone operation, then an operation to clone virtual machine D with customization might fail.

This is might be the cause. He’s how. Let say I have Windows 7 template. I then decide a want a clone of this – so I can install the Beta/RC View 4.5 Agent to the VM. Next I clone this VM to make another copy to install VMware Tools. I’m worried that the pesky SVGA 3D Driver might cause problems with PCoIP for argument sake, and decide having a clone is better than working from endless nested snapshots… Next I clone this VM to make a Parent-VM. And so on. Clones of the clone of the clone – can result in this limit being reached very quickly…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at 3:24 pm and is filed under VDI. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.