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Administration Guide › Managing Virtual Environments › Citrix XenServer › How to Prepare Windows Templates for XenServer Provisioning › The Sysprep Tool › Run the Sysprep Tool on Windows 2008 R2

Run the Sysprep Tool on Windows 2008 R2

The regular Windows installation process installs all files to perform the SysPrep process. After you configure the Windows installation, perform the following steps:

  1. Generate a valid XML response file using the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) for Windows Server 2008 R2. WAIK is available from the Microsoft Web site.

    Note: The way provisioning requires a dummy unattended response file, or it cannot shut down. The content of the response file is irrelevant, since the provisioning process replaces it, but the file must follow the SysPrep-specific XML schema.

  2. Name the generated XML file “sysprep.xml” and place it into the Sysprep directory:

    %SystemRoot%\system32\sysprep

  3. Run the following command: 
    sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:sysprep.xml