OS Customization fails in VMware vm

Question

We have a VMWare environment, I have done the guide on making a Golden image as specified here https://community.sophos.com/kb/en-us/120560. When I start the new vm it goes through the process of starting the OScustomization change hostname ,SID, etc., then fails with this error Windows could not finish configuring the system. To attempt to resume the configuration, restart the computer. I have done the same customization without sophos installed and it went through. What else do I need to do to get it to work? the OS is server 2016 in vmware 6.5.

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James Cook2 · Answer

I worked with support and so far when we stop the MCS service it runs fine, now we need to create a startup script that runs once to reenable the MCS service and then deletes itself if the server name is not the same as the golden image.

Jasmin · Answer

Hi James Cook2 
 As per the support case, the VMware customization was failing because of the services which were hampering the customization. The assigned engineer provided that we need to put the batch file, in the end, to set the service to the automatic and then need to make sure that it is currently stopped. 
 Also, there is a VMware KB article regarding the same issue which was provided to you.

strg · Answer

Hi, 
 I've been faced with the same problem. The cause is tamper protection. For the generalization with Sysprep to work, we had to deactivate the tamper protection! It seems that Tamper Protection blocks access to certain registry keys. 
 When following the KBA, the last line of the SophosGoldImagePrep.txt script must be commented out. 
 >echo Enable Tamper Protection >REM "C:\Program Files\Sophos\Endpoint Defense\SEDcli.exe" -TPon | rem 
 This behavior occurs with Windows 2016. With Windows 2019 this is not necessary.