UPDATE: Check out my updated AppX Article as well: Windows 10 – AppX Removal Script Update
Metro Apps, Modern Apps, Windows Store Apps, AppX, Universal Apps. Whatever you want to call them they have become a substantial part of Windows. If you’re having trouble understanding how they work and why, you are not alone. If you’re interested check out this quick read that may help clear things up a bit here. Some AppX Apps are the Tiles you see on the Start Menu or in the list that come preinstalled or even automatically installed by the Windows Store.
As the title suggests, if not handled properly these Apps can cause Sysprep to fail. Sysprep in Windows 8 and 10 has a validation mechanism that checks each of these installed Apps and determines if they’re provisioned for All Users or if they’re just installed for a single user. If for some reason you remove provisioning on an app that was installed for a user (VMware OS Optimization Tool comes to mind, but more on this later) it can cause the validation to fail and Sysprep won’t succeed.
Building the Windows 10 Enterprise base image
Building a Windows 10 Enterprise image for Horizon View persistent desktops I ran into this issue. Of course for non-persistent desktops this isn’t as big of a problem in most cases because you would probably be using Quickprep instead. There are certainly a number of cases where you would also want to run Sysprep on a non-persistent image though. So the following scripts could still be valid depending on your needs.
To give you the rundown I built a new VM and installed Windows 10 Enterprise. Performed some basic optimizations on the VM and the OS. I installed Windows 10 using the latest ISO available (Windows 10 – Version 1607) and got it updated through Windows Update. I ran the VMware OS Optimization Tool (OSOT) and had it remove all the Windows Apps on the Administrator profile (This is where I seemed to have caused the problem).
Note: Using the VMware OS Optimization Tool fling is highly recommended and in fact VMware’s own Horizon View Optimization Guide is solely based on it. ITuDA.com also has a pretty comprehensive article on the recommended steps for further optimizing a Windows 10 base image here.
I built a Guest Customization Spec for Windows 10 in vCenter. I took a number of snapshots in between changes to the base image in case it went wrong I had something to fall back on. I cloned to template and then deployed a VM from that template using the guest spec. The VM booted, got an IP address and then never joined the domain. I went to investigate and found the script ran from Task Scheduler but didn’t appear to complete. After digging around for a while I checked the Sysprep logs and found the problem which looked something like this.
<Date> <Time>, Error SYSPRP Package <PackageFullName> was installed for a user, but not provisioned for all users. This package will not function properly in the sysprep image. <Date> <Time>, Error SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80073cf2. <Date> <Time>, Error SYSPRP Exit code of RemoveAllApps thread was 0x3cf2. <Date> <Time>, Error [0x0f0082] SYSPRP ActionPlatform::LaunchModule: Failure occurred while executing 'SysprepGeneralize' from C:\Windows\System32\AppxSysprep.dll; dwRet = 0x3cf2
This basically says that Sysprep failed because one of the packages was provisioned for one user, but not for all users and apparently Sysprep doesn’t like that. The problem as far as I could see comes from running the VMware OSOT and telling it to remove the Windows Apps I didn’t need. What also threw a wrench into the mix was the Windows Store now apparently automatically updates installed Apps and installs a number of additional Sponsored Apps like Duolingo, Flipboard, Eclipse, Wunderlist, Candy Crush and the list can go on. These apps aren’t removed from provisioning using the VMware OSOT.
Why am I getting these Apps on Windows 10 ENTERPRISE?
Microsoft is allowing Sponsored Apps to be installed through Windows 10 Store Auto-Update even for Enterprise editions of Windows 10. You have the option to disable them through GPO, registry or AppLocker as detailed here. You can also opt to use the Windows 10 LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch) edition, since it doesn’t include Edge, Windows Apps (AppX Apps) or the Windows Store at all. The Windows 10 LTSB doesn’t get feature updates like the Current Branch though, which could potentially cause a whole other set of issues depending on your environment and required frequency of updates. To top all that off, Microsoft recommends to use the LTSB only for specialized systems like Kiosks, ATMs, POS systems and the like.
It just seems like these extra steps could have been avoided by Microsoft especially on a business centric edition of their OS, but I digress. If you don’t use one of those methods and you manually remove the Apps via the Start menu be ready to do it again when the Windows 10 Store Auto-Updates and the next round of Sponsored Apps gets installed. You can of course disable the Windows 10 Store Auto-Updates through GPO or through registry edits. Unfortunately this doesn’t fix the Microsoft default AppX Apps that are installed natively and we will have to use PowerShell to clean that up.
How do I fix this mess?
Fumbling around for a while I found the specific Windows App that Sysprep was complaining about. I tried manually removing that App using Powershell, which I will detail below. I ran Sysprep again and surprise, it now complained about another of the Windows Apps being non-compliant with Syspreps validation features and it failed. Time for another approach.
Microsoft has published KB2769827 that has some detail on why this happens and how to remediate it. In my case I didn’t want to completely remove provisioning of these Windows Apps for new users. I just wanted to make Sysprep work properly so I adjusted a bit of their resolution to fit my needs.
Option 1: Choose what you want to remove for Persistent desktop images
First we have to get a list of what Windows Apps are installed. Login to the Windows 10 base image as local Administrator, open an elevated Powershell instance and run the below command.
Get-AppxPackage -AllUser | Format-List -Property PackageFullName,PackageUserInformation
This commands output will return PackageFullName and the local user accounts that the Apps are installed on and will look something like the below image. I deviated from Microsoft’s resolution at this point because they detail looking for a specific PublisherId and I found that several of the Windows Store installed Windows Apps that were causing havoc with Sysprep don’t fall under that specific PublisherId. Taking out the PublisherId qualifier forces the command to return ALL installed or provisioned Windows Apps and not just the ones with that PublisherId. Results may vary a bit as I saw many articles of people talking about Candy Crush Saga and many other “Apps” that were installed via Windows 10 Store Auto-Update that I somehow didn’t have installed at all.
Previously I mentioned manually removing the individual App that was initially causing Sysprep to fail using “Remove-AppxPackage -Package <packagefullname>”, however as soon as I did that another App caused Sysprep to continue to fail. From here I decided to just remove all of the questionable apps but leave provisioning alone for now. I put together a quick Powershell script including the PackageFullName of all of the installed Apps from the above list. I left out the somewhat obvious System related packages, the Store, anything that was in Staged status and things like VCLib or .Net related Apps. There were a few I was unsure of which I also left out and those didn’t seem to break Sysprep luckily.
You will need to set the Execution Policy in Powershell to allow you to run the script first.
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
And after you run the script you should set it back.
Set-ExecutionPolicy Restricted
Here’s the script. Copy the below to a text file and save it as RemoveAppXPackages.ps1 or something like it. CD to the directory you save the script to and run it using “.\RemoveAppXPackages.ps1”.
Import-Module AppX Import-Module Dism #You may have to manually uninstall some Sponsored Apps from the Start Menu #Microsoft Apps Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.3DBuilder* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.BingTranslator* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.FreshPaint* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.Getstarted* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.Messaging* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.NetworkSpeedTest* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.Office.OneNote* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.OneConnect* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.People* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.SkypeApp* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.WindowsCalculator* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.WindowsMaps* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.XboxApp* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.ZuneMusic* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.ZuneVideo* | Remove-AppxPackage #Sponsored Apps Get-AppxPackage *Duolingo* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *EclipseManager* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Flipboard* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Wunderlist* | Remove-AppxPackage
You may have to adjust this according to what’s in the list you generate from the first Get-AppxPackage command of course. Of note, this may change due to whatever Sponsored Apps Microsoft decides to deploy through Windows Store Auto-Update in the future as well. The Sponsored Apps section is just there to show you how it’s done. You will have to adjust it to whatever is installed at the time.
You will also notice I didn’t include the complete PackageFullName as returned from the first Get-AppxPackage command like the below example.
Get-AppxPackage -AllUser | Format-List -Property PackageFullName,PackageUserInformation
The reason for this is the returned AppX Package versions can change. So if I were to build a script using a PackageFullName like “Microsoft.Messaging_3.19.1001.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe” and tried to use it later it may fail because these AppX apps can and probably will be updated frequently. By using “Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.Messaging*” we’re asking PowerShell to return the AppX package with wildcards and the rest of the command ” | Remove-AppxPackage” finishes the process by removing that AppX package regardless of the version number or PublisherID behind the AppX Package name.
If you choose you can completely remove provisioning for some of the AppX Apps using the following command as well.
Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName <packagefullname>
This will make it so these Apps don’t install at all under new user profiles that get created.
After running the Powershell script I tested Sysprep and it worked without issue. At this point I took a few steps back since as I mentioned I was building persistent desktops and didn’t want to do all of this manually every time. I added the script to the base image, ran it and took a snapshot. I cloned the base image to a template and then deployed new Windows 10 persistent desktops from the template using the Guest Customization Spec. They deployed flawlessly and joined the domain as expected.
Option 2: Remove unnecessary AppX packages from Non-Persistent Images
After working through this with Persistent desktops I found I also wanted to remove some of these AppX apps from Non-Persistent desktops as well. So I created a script for that as well. This one will also remove Provisioning of the AppX packages so they don’t reinstall themselves.
You will need to set the Execution Policy in Powershell to allow you to run the script first.
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
And after you run the script you should set it back.
Set-ExecutionPolicy Restricted
Here’s the script. Copy the below to a text file and save it as RemoveAppXPackagesProvisioning.ps1 or something like it. CD to the directory you save the script to and run it using “.\RemoveAppXPackagesProvisioning.ps1”.
Import-Module AppX Import-Module Dism #You may have to manually uninstall some Sponsored Apps from the Start Menu #Remove AppX Packages for non-business Apps Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.3DBuilder* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.Getstarted* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.Messaging* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.Office.OneNote* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.People* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.SkypeApp* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.XboxApp* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.ZuneMusic* | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.ZuneVideo* | Remove-AppxPackage #Remove AppX Provisioning for non-business apps Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.3DBuilder" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.Getstarted" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.Messaging" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.Office.OneNote" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.People" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.SkypeApp" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.XboxApp" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.ZuneMusic" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where Displayname -EQ "Microsoft.ZuneVideo" | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online
You may have to adjust this according to what you want to remove. Above you’ll notice the second section runs some different commands. These will remove Provisioning for the AppX packages listed so they won’t reinstall. If you decide not to remove a particular AppX Package you will need to remove the AppX Package from both sections or you may break things.
Removing Sponsored Apps
You’ll also notice I didn’t include any Sponsored Apps in this script. On my Non-Persistent desktops I’ve enabled the GPO that will disable Windows 10 Store from installing or updating Sponsored Apps. The Sponsored Apps don’t appear to have Provisioning Packages like the built-in Microsoft AppX Apps do. I found the best way to remove the Sponsored Apps you don’t want is to just Uninstall them from the Start Menu manually on your base image. Just Click the Start Menu, Right-Click the Sponsored Apps you don’t want and Click Uninstall. Doing that along with implementing the GPO should stop them from coming back.
I need an “It’s Complicated” status for my feelings about Windows 10
Windows 10 is great! It’s boots up fast. It performs well on all kinds hardware. It’s really fast on VDI. It’s pretty rock solid when configured properly on stable hardware. It has great multi-monitor support. And the list goes on…
Windows 10 is terrible! It sends data all over the place to MSFT. It is difficult to truly disable all the telemetry and monitoring. It won’t let me control how I update my machine. It at some point just automatically installs updates and reboots itself. It won’t let you turn some things off. And it’s really tough to use for VDI without a LOT of work.
The Start Menu, Quick Launch, Windows Apps and MANY other settings are now being stored in Jet Blue databases and not in the registry or the file system. The AppX Apps are now critical to the usability of the OS in some cases. It’s like Microsoft is actively making it harder for admins to manage and customize their desktop OS. I’ll be writing an article soon on how to overcome many of these problems when using Windows 10 for Horizon View. For now I hope this article at least helps you get Sysprep working. Great Success!
UPDATE: Check out my updated AppX Article as well: Windows 10 – AppX Removal Script Update
Hiya,
I really appreciate your post, But i am having an on-going saga.
When I do the Applist, i still have a bunch on there if i try and manually say remove Windows.ContactSupport as a provisioned package i get an error:
The System cannot find the file specified.
Any ideas?
So first I would normally have you do a “Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | fl DisplayName” and that will show you what Provisioned AppX Packages are available. Unfortunately in this case “Windows.ContactSupport” is a System App and cannot be removed. You can see which are System Apps by going to “C:\Windows\SystemApps”. You have to be careful removing AppX Packages because in some cases it could negatively affect your OS, which is why I avoided anything that wasn’t obvious or that didn’t have a corresponding Provisioned Package in my script. Thanks for visiting and I hope the article was helpful!
I have a similar problem – it tells me that some variant of EclipseManager is blocking my sysprep but there is no listed appx that has “*eclipse*” in it’s name 🙁
I just downloaded Eclipse Manager from the Store to test. It does have an AppX Package but not a Provisioning Package. It’s a Windows Store Sponsored App. You should be able to just uninstall it from the Start Menu or run “Get-AppxPackage | fl Name,PackageFullName” to see the list and then Remove-AppxPackage the Eclipse instance you find per the instructions in my post. Good luck and let me know if that helps.
The error when trying to sysprep is:
[code]
2017-01-17 14:30:28, Error SYSPRP Package 46928bounde.EclipseManager_2.1.0.21_neutral__a5h4egax66k6y was installed for a user, but not provisioned for all users. This package will not function properly in the sysprep image.
2017-01-17 14:30:28, Error SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80073cf2.
2017-01-17 14:30:28, Error SYSPRP Exit code of RemoveAllApps thread was 0x3cf2.
[/code]
But
[code]
Get-AppxPackage |? PackageFullName -like “*eclipse*”
[/code]
returns nothing, leaving me in a bit of a bind….
Try the following
Import-Module Dism
Import-Module Appx
Get-AppxPackage | ? PackageFullName -like *eclipse*
Without the quotes should do it. Again please check the Start Menu and see if it’s listed there. If it is you can just Right-Click and Uninstall from there. If not you can also check if you happen to have logged in under another user account and the AppX package is installed there.
This thing hates me… I’m going to start over. All we did was install a new W10v1607 on a VM. We then installed basic applications like Office 2013 and a few other normal Win32 applications. At no point did we install ANYTHING from the cursed Windows App store. We’ll try again. Thanks, at least for pointing us in the direction that we needed to look.
As I mentioned in my post, the Windows Store will automatically install Sponsored Apps, without consent. You can stop it from doing so through GPO if you want or through a manual regedit.
Thanks – when I started from scratch and was really careful about doing as little possible, it all worked. Glad though, that you had this post – made me think about what I was doing.
I was able to get around this by the command listed in section 1. and then removing the user profile that had the software installed. Control Panel – system – advanced system settings – profiles. Then find the user account listed in the return for eclipse. This is a per user software and without the user logging in to uninstall it this is the quickest way past it.
You will want to be careful removing user accounts that you haven’t removed AppX apps from as it can break the manifest and cause you to not be able to run Sysprep at all. Check out my update to this article that has some rules to follow around removing AppX apps and several updated script options. https://virtuallyinclined.com/2018/02/10/windows-10-appx-removal-script-update/
Had the same error with Sysprep while working in MDT. I found a work-around solution for this from Johan Arwidmark over at Deployment Research. There’s a script he offers that disables Windows store updates. You can then re-enable them once you are finished with whatever you are doing. Have a look. The answer is way down at the bottom of his post. hope this helps someone here.
http://deploymentresearch.com/Research/Post/615/Fixing-why-Sysprep-fails-in-Windows-10-due-to-Windows-Store-updates
I did uninstall Twitter from the store, however, i did find that the package still located at the WindowsApps folder but i can’t delete for nothing, i ran your script using the app package name and nothing it will no go away at all and sysprep keeps failing because of twitter!
Sysprep says photos is the culprit when I attempt to capture but i don’t want to remove it for new accounts and I have not found a way to successfully remove it from current accounts only
You will have to remove it from each account that you’ve logged in with. Be warned it may not be just Photos that’s causing the problem. If you have logged in under multiple accounts AppX apps may have been provisioned for each of them.
What do you know about Windows.Miracastview? Sysprep is giving me the same error, I cannot remove it because it is a built in one, and none of the fixes I have seen on other sites have been able to work. So far it seems to be an issue with the version 1709 update. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Hey Ahron thanks for reading my blog! I haven’t seen that issue yet but I put my GoogleFu to work and found this thread that has some possible fixes for your issue at the bottom. https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/e610f718-b2d4-45a2-b4ff-ded8c755bdbb/unable-to-sysprep-after-fall-creator-update-due-to-miracast?forum=win10itprosetup If you go down to the bottom there are a number of possible fixes including copying a missing folder from a 1703 install. Microsoft appears to indicate that you could also do a fresh install from a new 1709 ISO and avoid this issue as well. I’m guessing maybe you upgraded to 1709?
I did. I’ve read through that thread a dozen times and others like it. Lol. I have tried it but to no avail until later this afternoon. I am building it as a VM on an offline network that I cannot connect to the internet. So I tried on a physical computer that a can connect and the fix worked this time.
He Ahron, this is a reported bug. I have a support case with Mircrosoft about this issue.
I am having the same issue but with contactsupport app. In version 1703 you can remove this app by using PS.
Get-WindowsCapability -online | ? {$_.Name -like ‘*ContactSupport*’} | Remove-WindowsCapability –online
I did not remove the app before upgrading which I suspect is the issue.
For the Miracast issue, I’ve seen instances of people suggesting copying C:\windows\miracastview from a 1703 machine to the 1709.
We’ve been dealing with one Microsoft roadblock after another and are at the end of the rope. We are seriously looking at dumping the entire Microsoft Product mess for something else, BECAUSE EVERY DANG TIME MICROSOFT TOSSES UP ANOTHER ROADBLOCK!
Is this part of the CEO’s vision? Is he a plant from Apple or Google?
I guess Microsoft will NOT change UNTIL WE ALL UNITE AND LEAVE..
So sick of this crap..
Thanks for this info, this will help with the issues we are running into lately but we’re already looking at replacing Microsoft next year. Its going to take that much time to figure out how to extricate ourselves from the mess that is microsloth..
Yeah it’s a mess but it’s getting better. They’re making changes, slowly, to make it easier and less susceptible to breakage though. I’m writing an update to this article now that provides several different scripts that can make it easier to deal with AppX apps and I detail how not to run into the issue in the first place. Check back in a few days or even subscribe to my blog to get update when I finish it.
Thanks for your article. Got me started down the right path. Sysprep keep failing and had to keep adding apps to your ps1 file. What a PAIN. I’m concerned about turning the base image on a running updates because I don’t want these useless apps to get installed again and break sysprep.
Tom
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Interestingly VMware tells you to just blanket uninstall all Windows 10 apps during it’s audit mode of a pending-sysprep machine. I never got why they recommend such a drastic approach, but I’m starting to see why….probably better off with all or none.
Easier just to run this, it will refuse to remove the built-in Windows apps and only get rid of the ones installed later, then you can do your sysprep: Get-AppxPackage -AllUser | Remove-AppxPackage $_.PackageFullName
Hey Steven thanks for reading and commenting. Yeah you can absolutely simplify the process if you want everything removed you could run the command you mentioned. My approach will allow you to get granular and remove what you want and keep other apps intact. I also updated this article https://virtuallyinclined.com/2018/02/10/windows-10-appx-removal-script-update/ which gives you several options in removing apps how you want.
Sysprep failed for me because of the infamous MiracastView app that defies removal. Even articles about using an SQL database editor to allow removal of the app fail in later Windows versions. I ended up renaming StateRepository-Deployment.srd and StateRepository-Machine.srd, followed by running Sysprep. It worked, but I wonder if there will be potential side-effects downstream (though none so far !).
See @oldboyscout’s posts in this forum thread for the details.
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/5e7c8439-bf9a-4050-8fbd-b2c207eb7b52/how-to-delete-an-app-from-a-deleted-users-account?forum=win10itprogeneral&prof=required
Thanks for reading and commenting! I read through that and it looks like it’s just deleting the database and recreating it. I’d be afraid to try this in a production scenario just because you never know what else is tied into that database that could be broken by this process.
1. Navigate to C:\windows\system32\ and search for the sysprep folder, go to properties change the ownership of the folder to to the local admin by changing the permissions in Advance menu.
2. After you take the ownership of the folder you can open sysprep\actionfiles and edit the Generalize.xml and remove the following entry from there.
3. Save as the Generalize.xml on any desired location and then rename the existing Generalize.xml to old and replace it with the new one.
4. Run sysprep Generalize and see if that works for you.
It worked for me and i can live with it.