virtualbox.org

After playing a little bit with linked clones in Proxmox VE, I was excited to learn that Virtualbox also supported that feature. So I installed an eval copy of Windows Server 2012 R2 in a VM, updated it with Windows Update, then ran Sysprep with the OOBE, shutdown and Generalize options. I then attempted to create a linked clone from a VM I was hoping to use as a master template for a home lab. However, when I booted the clone I got an error "windows setup could not configure windows on this hardware". The only hardware change I made was to reinitialize the MAC address of the clone. I then tried to boot the original VM, and got the same error.

Has anyone run into this situation before? Did I do something wrong with Sysprep? Unfortunately, I had to delete the VMs involved since space is at a premium, but I was hoping someone might have an idea of what happened. I'm now reluctant to try a linked clone again...

You must have changed the hardware recipe in an important way, though I have no idea what. Unless you can give us hard data to work with then all we can do is speculate fruitlessly. We can be pretty sure that this had nothing to do with being a linked clone: how could the guest software act differently to a condition it can't even detect?

On sysprep: I haven't used it in a long time, so it's possible you didn't prepare the new VM correctly, i.e. make it require a new product key. Obviously a clone VM (linked or not) would require a separate activation (and therefore a different product key) from the original.

Incidentally: I don't know why you thought linked clones would be useful, but I bet it wouldn't do what you expected. E.g. in the long run they require more disk space, not less (because stand alone clones can be freely moved and deleted to whereever the space is).

Let me explain my use case. I'm using 2K12R2 eval licenses to create a home lab where I can learn more about the OS. The activation expires after 180 days, so these VMs will have a pretty short lifespan. Do you think storage usage would be high after just 6 months?

I managed to duplicate the problem with a standard clone, in addition to the problem with the linked clone I had earlier. I will try to duplicate the problem a few more times and see if I can narrow it down. The VMs were created with an older version of Virtualbox, and I'm currently a couple of minor revisions behind. Could that be the problem? I'll try updating Vbox in the coming days, and creating some fresh VMs with my eval license.

I have been able to successfully use this process of installing 2k12r2, updating the OS, then sysprepping it on Proxmox/KVM, so I'm surprised it failed on Virtualbox.