Windows could not finish configuring the system… Sysprep fail

An annoying error this morning. After prepping a laptop, running sysprep with the audit mode the following error occurres:

Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer.
The error could be fixed with hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981542/ well how do we get it on the laptop:
  1. When the error: Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer. Press SHIFT – F10. Don’t press OK.
  2. At this point you can do basicly anything
  3. My advice is to start services.msc and start all of the services which are marked: Automatic
  4. Start compmgmt.msc, enable the administrator user, or create an extra user with administrator rights
  5. Start explorer.exe
  6. You can now Switch the user
  7. Log in with the admin user and start the hotfix

Well if you just want to break the sysprep process:

  1. When the error: Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume configuration, restart the computer. Press SHIFT – F10. Don’t press OK.
  2. Start compmgmt.msc, enable the administrator user, or create an extra user with administrator rights
  3. Start Regedit
  4. Go to HKLMSystemSetup
  5. Clear the Cmdline value
  6. Reset the MiniSetupInProgress, SetupType and SystemSetupInProgress to 0 / zero
  7. Restart the machine

Daniel Nikolic