March 7th, 2008 
Kiwi Si 
When trying to create a new Virtual Machine from a template in VMWare ESX v3.5 via the VM Virtual Center you may receive the following error message: ‘Warning: Windows customization resources were not found on this server’.
![test]](http://www.techhead.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/test.jpg)
The reason for this message is that you don’t have ‘SysPrep’ files copied onto your local machine (ie: the machine from which you are running Virtual Center) and if you do chances are they’ve been copied to the wrong place or are the wrong version of the files (ie: xp sysprep files in the w2k3 folder).
Resolving this is easy enough. All you have to do is extract the contents of the ‘deploy.cab’ from your OS source CD into the one of the sub-directories under (depending on the OS of the image):
‘C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep’
In this directory you will see 6 sub-directories each representing a Windows OS version. So if your VM template is for a Windows Server 2003 x32 copy the contents of ‘deploy.cab’ into the ‘svr2003′ folder, if its the x64 version then copy the files into ‘svc2003-64′, etc.
Exit the from the ‘Deploy Wizard’ and restart it again. Now when you get to the ‘Select Guest Customization Option’ screen the other customization options will be available.
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My name is Simon Seagrave and I am a London (UK) based Senior Technology Consultant and vSpecialist working for EMC. 
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Thanks Dude, wish I had the time/energy to blog all the bits and pieces I learn along the way!
[Reply]
I have this same error after install of 2.5. I downloaded the latest deploy.cab from Microsoft and Still not Working. I restarted wizard, I also restated the Vceneter server. Still Not able to customize my VM’s. Anything would be helpful.
[Reply]
Make sure that you extract the deploy.cab and not just copy it into the directories.
[Reply]
Hi Ray,
I ended up expanding this post into a new one which include links to downloading the relevant sysprep files from MS.
It can be found here: http://www.techhead.co.uk/vmware-esx-deploy-template-wizard-and-ms-sysprep-guest-customization-grayed-out
VMDude has a good point about extracting the deploy.cab first.
[Reply]
I extracted the copied files and it really doesn’t make a differnce. The extraction process does not register any thing. Copying is really the same thing.
I checked the vpxd.log and it turned out it did not like the specific version of the file. So I gues after you re-run the wizard if it does not wok it is important to check the log. Thanks all for the posts!!!
[Reply]
Hi Ray,
Did you follow the link I sent you – this has the correct to SysPrep links on the Microsoft downloads site?
Good Luck.
[Reply]