Sysprep Issues with customization specification

I thought this was a very known issue but assumptions are the mother of all …. So here some (old news). When deploying a virtual machine from a template within vCenter while using customization specification and within the customization specification it indicates that the system should be placed in a particular domain. Sysprep will try but is not able to do this.

Customization Specification is put in to a Sysprep.inf file (Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP) or in a sysprep.xml (Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7). Within the sysprep. there is a sequence:

• Add to domain
• set IP adress e.q.

When you have a environment witch has no scope DHCP address available you must do this manual because the IP setting is done after the add to domain so the virtual machine will have a APIPA address and is not able to connect to the domain. So it is handy to have a DCHP scope for first boot to let the Customization Specification do his job.