How to terminate Audit Mode in Win8.

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pav

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Apr 5, 2013
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I found two ways of getting out of Audit Mode for Win7:

1. Go to the Start> Run.

Type ‘regedit’ and hit enter.

Find and right-click the relevant registry key for your operating system:

Windows XP: AuditInProgress in HKLM\System\Setup
Windows Vista: ImageState in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\State
Windows 7: ImageState in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\State Select Modify.

Delete the value and Click OK.

Restart your computer for changes to take effect.

2. you can take it out of Audit Mode by running sysprep/oobe from the command line.

This are both for Win7, which I can assume will work for Win8 as well.
What do we do for Win8. Which approach will bring machine to the original state if sysprep was run by mistake?
 
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winoutreach5
Pav,

First, it is important to understand what, specifically, Sysprep is. As you can see in the TechNet library article What is Sysprep?, Sysprep prepares an installation of Windows for duplication, auditing, and customer delivery. Audit mode enables you to add additional device drivers or applications to a Windows installation. After you install the additional drivers and applications, you can test the integrity of the Windows installation. In order to boot out of audit mode and back in to OOBE (Out-of-box-experience), you will want to run the following command from an administrator command prompt:

sysprep /oobe /generalize

Please note that the command and switches are also stated and explained in the library article...
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winoutreach5

winoutreach5

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Pav,

First, it is important to understand what, specifically, Sysprep is. As you can see in the TechNet library article What is Sysprep?, Sysprep prepares an installation of Windows for duplication, auditing, and customer delivery. Audit mode enables you to add additional device drivers or applications to a Windows installation. After you install the additional drivers and applications, you can test the integrity of the Windows installation. In order to boot out of audit mode and back in to OOBE (Out-of-box-experience), you will want to run the following command from an administrator command prompt:

sysprep /oobe /generalize

Please note that the command and switches are also stated and explained in the library article provided above as well.

Also, it is important to note that each time you run the sysprep command with the /generalize switch, the licensing state of the Windows is reset, otherwise known as rearmed. If your intention is to transfer a Windows image to different hardware, you will want to use the /generalize switch only once and then capture the image.

In the event that you do have to run sysprep multiple times prior to capture, you would run sysprep with an answer file that has the SkipRearm setting enabled. You can review the number of times you can use the SkipRearm setting by running the Slmgr.vbs /dlv command in an elevated command prompt. Bear in mind, that by using the SkipRearm setting, you are not resetting the licensing state of the Windows installation. The command you would use in this case is as follows:

sysprep /generalize /unattend:answerfile (the answerfile part would be the name / file path of where your unattend.xml file is located) More information on this can be found in the How Sysprep Works TechNet library article.

Finally, there is also a great deal of resources for various deployment, virtualization and management scenarios available from the Springboard Series on TechNet.

Hope this helps!

Jessica
Windows Outreach Team – IT Pro
 
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pav

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Apr 5, 2013
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Jessica,

I enter into the sysprep by mistake and would like to get out of it. I did not need to duplicate or audit windows. I just want to get back to the state of my widows before I typed sysprep. Which methods out of the two listed above will be a better approach.
 
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winoutreach5

winoutreach5

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Hi Pav,

You will want to run the following sysprep command from an administrator command prompt window:

sysprep /oobe

This should remove your system from Audit Mode and send you back to the Windows Welcome screen.

Please let me know if you have any trouble with the above process.

Jessica
Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro
The Springboard Series on TechNet
 
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