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Ben Pilbrow
Asked: 2010-08-17 03:23:42 +0800 CST

Windows XP Mode confusing WSUS

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I have a need to use Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 to run a legacy application, so I downloaded, installed and configured it on my machine as a test without any issues. The problem I am now having is I have done the same setup on the machine which needs to run the legacy software and WSUS seems to be getting confused as to which VM is which.

Here's what I have done so far on both machines (which seems pretty reasonable to me), can anybody see any flaws in my process?

  • Download and install the .msu file to enable Windows XP Mode
  • Download and install Windows XP Mode
  • Download and install the .msu file to enable Windows XP Mode without hardware assisted virtualization
  • Set the network mode to use the physical NIC (instead of the default NAT)
  • Renamed the VM to HOSTPC-XPMODE
  • Joined the VM to the domain and moved it in Active Directory to the appropriate OU

For the sake of argument, we'll call the 2 Windows 7 machines PC001 and PC002 (with PC001-XPMODE and PC002-XPMODE as the names of the VMs).

When I go into WSUS, it will show me status information for either PC001-XPMODE or PC002-XPMODE, but only one or the other - never both at the same time. It's almost as if WSUS is getting confused because it is an identical machine.

Am I missing something fundamental, or am I using it not actually as intended? This blog entry from the Virtual PC team talks about joining the VM to the domain, so I don't think I'm using Windows XP Mode incorrectly (but feel free to correct me if necessary).

virtualization windows-7 wsus

2 Answers

  1. I wonder if if Microsoft's XPMode image has a SUSclientID value leftover in the registry? That could explain WSUS thinking multiple XPMode machines are the same machine.

    Check HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate before you join the XPMode machine to the domain, see if there is a SUSclientID.

    I ran into this issue with WSUS when working with sysprep. If this is the same issue, see http://www.winserverkb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/wsus/1163/VBS-Script-to-fix-imaged-computers for a script to fix.

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  2. This is a classic symptom of duplicated SusClientIDs caused by cloning an image with an already present SusClientID.

    Delete the SusClientID registry value from the registry key

    HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate

    on EVERY PC

    and reboot (or restart the Automatic Updates service)

    and THEN run wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow

    which will force the WUA to generate a new (unique) SusClientID and reregister with the WSUS Server.

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