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We have a scenario where it's not possible for us to use Sysprep with Windows 2008. Has anyone had any issues using NewSID to generate new SID's on cloned Windows 2008 images?

Update:

According to Mark Russinovich, the author of NewSID, it doesn't matter if cloned machines have the same SID:

The Machine SID Duplication Myth

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4 Answers

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You don't need NewSID.

See Mark Russinovich's latest blog entry: The Machine SID Duplication Myth.

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Yeah I read that yesterday. – Kev Nov 4 '09 at 7:43
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In fact I've done it. Worked fine for me! Had it rename the server and everything. As a matter of practice, I use it on machines before they are added to a domain of course, so you don't have any login issues after the reboot...

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One thing to be aware of, but probably won't cause a problem: NewSID won't create new SID's for accounts like IUSR_*machine* (less of a problem for Win2k8 compared to earlier Servers which replied on such accounts).

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All our sites an app pools get their own custom accounts fortunately. Cheers. – Kev Aug 7 '09 at 15:07
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I'd be more interested in investigating and resolving the reasons why you can't sysprep, to be honest. I much prefer to use the "official" method for doing these things as i've learned through bitter experience that workarounds can often break (and sometimes badly) months or years down the line.

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We use Virtual Iron who just got bought then killed by Oracle. Sysprep'd 2008 VM's fail to start in VI. There's is pretty much no more support for our current VI (4.4) environment and we've been pretty much told not to bother upgrading to 4.5. So we're a bit shagged until we move to Cytrix or Hyper-V...:( – Kev Aug 7 '09 at 16:11
So NewSID is really our only option at the moment until we change platform. – Kev Aug 7 '09 at 16:12
:( that's a major bummer but I suppose them's the breaks. – mh. Aug 7 '09 at 16:22
We persevered...turns out that disabling the Administrator account prior to sealing the machine caused all sorts of grief. We now disable this after the cloned machine has booted. – Kev Oct 2 '09 at 12:38
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