Sysprep and Administrator account

[Moyukh]

Here is a scenarion, I have deleted all user account and enable the
Administrator account, and set it to auto logon, so that it can boot directly
into the account and run some automated tests.. Now when i sysprep such a
machine and create a image, After deploying the image with a unattend.xml,
it disable the Administrator account. So i left with a unusable system with
no valid account to login.

Now here is my question
1. Is this a bug in Vista? Or this is not a valid scenario?
2. After getting stuck, Is there a way to activate the Administrator account
by booting through Windows PE?

Vista Version : 5600 RC1

Waiting to hear from you, please help me out

Regards
/Moyukh

[Tommy Sun]

I know this scenario in windows XP envrioment. It's by design.
Now it looks it's same in Vista.

You can start VISTA safe mode then to enable administrator account.

[Moyukh]

I don't think XP behaves the same way, If the Administrator account is
enabled before sysprep, It Does not get magically disabled while running
setup when rebooted after sysprep.

About running Vista into Safe Mode, It gives Administrator login Icon, But
when clicked it says "Your account has been disabled. Please see your system
administrator"

So i am back to the same point.
1. Is this a bug in Vista?
2. Is there a way to enable the Administrator account without logging into
the system? May be from PE

[Jane C]

The Administrator account is disabled by design in Vista. It can be enabled
via Group Policy, so you may be able to do that before closing the image
again?

[Moyukh]

But is there a posibility of enabling the Administrator account on an Image?
May by mounting it.

[Kendric]

There is an option in sysprep for Vista to enable to Administrator account. I
use it in my images. It can be found in the OOBE section in SIM.

[Moyukh]

Kendric thanks for the info, Are you refering to the AutoLogin section?
<AutoLogon>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
<Username>Administrator</Username>
<Password>pwd</Password>
<LogonCount>1</LogonCount>
</AutoLogon>

This partially solves the problem, kind of workaround.
Thanks for it.

[arindam_km]

this issue was faced by me before what was the exact step which resolve the
issue