Hello,

last week I had to deploy 25virtual Windows (XP) Clients an on VMware ESX Cluster. One of the requirements was that the clients must be member of a Windows Active Directory.

After setting up vCenter (copy sysprep) I installed a reference Windows XP vm, convert them to a template and defined a Customization Specification like this:

Initial Customization Specification

During the cloning process, by using the template with the recently created custom spec, the domain join always fails and the Computer Account was disabled at each try.

Ok, now I tried modify some parameter of the Custom Specification:

• Changing the Domain from fqdn to the NetBIOS Domain “SUB”
• Altered the Username to SUB\joinuser or joinuser@SUB or joinuser@sub.domain.org

More »