WinPE can't locate Image to install after Sysprep

Hello,

Since the mainstream support for 8.1 ended this month, I decided to make a custom ISo for one last time, including August Rollup. I did a few things in the audit mode, most of which were tested methods so no issues there but also I changed Windows default aero theme with my 3rd party theme after Sysprep through mounting the image offline. I took extreme care in replacing all the related files .msstyles ,.theme and shellstyle.dll (System is already patched to accept 3rd party themes)

Two other new things that I did in Audit mode is I removed the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\DefaultColors and I created SetupComplete.cmd in Windir\Setup\Scripts and included the following command in it powercfg /hibernate off

After this I captured the image using winscript.ini (attached below) and when I did a first test run, using answer file, windows PE reported that I don't have any image in the index to install. So next again captured the image, this time without using the exclusion list and ran the installation without the answer file. After I enterted the key, Win PE again gave an error stating that the key entered does not correspond to any of the image available. I'm 100% confident I didn't make any mistake with the key.

Can anyone please point out what might have caused this error to occur ? And how can I use my 3rd party theme as default instead of Aero ? I read discussion on technet someone mentioning to change the paths in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ThemeManager \ DLLName And HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes \ InstallTheme \ InstallVisualStyle to a custom theme that should work. I haven't tried this method though.

And lastly, during the mount, I looked up in the Windir\setup folder and there was no Scripts folder there. I investigated and found the if the OEM key is used, windows 8 does not run Setupcomplete.cmd. So how can I disable Hibernate from within the windows, without requiring the answer file pass ?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for reading.

Edit : wimscript.ini

Code:

[ExclusionList]
$Recycle.Bin
$Windows.~BT
$Windows.~WS
Recycler
Recycled
\PerfLogs
PerfLogs
System Volume Information
swapfile.sys
hiberfil.sys
pagefile.sys
winpepge.sys
\$ntfs.log
\hiberfil.sys
\pagefile.sys
\swapfile.sys
\winpepge.sys
"\System Volume Information"
\RECYCLER
\Windows\Temp\
\Windows\Logs\
\Windows\Prefetch
\Windows\CSC
\Windows\CbsTemp\
\Windows\WinSxS\ManifestCache\
\Program Files\WindowsApps\Deleted\
\Program Files\WindowsApps\DeletedAllUserPackages\
\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\
\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Caches\
\Boot
\Recovery
\Recovery.txt
\BOOTSECT.BAK
\ProgramData\Microsoft\Network\Downloader\*
\Users\Administrator
\Windows\debug\*
\Windows\inf\*.etl
\Windows\inf\*.log
\Windows\Logs\CBS\*
\Windows\Logs\DISM
\Windows\Logs\DPX
\Windows\Logs\PBR
\Windows\Logs\DirectX.log
\Windows\Panther
\Windows\Prefetch
\Windows\security\database\*.chk
\Windows\security\database\*.log
\Windows\security\database\*.jrs
\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\FontCache-S-1-5-21-*.dat
\Windows\System32\catroot2\*.chk
\Windows\System32\catroot2\*.log
\Windows\System32\catroot2\*.jrs
\Windows\System32\CodeIntegrity\bootcat.cache
\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Panther
\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep_succeeded.tag
\Windows\System32\winevt\Logs\*
\Windows\Temp\*
\Windows\WinSxS\ManifestCache\*
\Windows\WinSxS\Temp\PendingDeletes\*
\Windows\DtcInstall.log
\Windows\PFRO.log
\Windows\setupact.log
\Windows\setuperr.log
\Windows\TSSysprep.log.log
\Windows\vmgcoinstall.log
\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log
\Users\*\AppData\Local\Temp\
\Users\*\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\
\Users\*\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\
\Users\*\AppData\Local\lxss
\Users\*\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\rootfs\
\Users\*\OneDrive

Can anyone please also check the wimscript and see if there's any entry which I shouldn't use.

Thank you for anyone who appears in my thread.

 

Thank for showing up abbodi. I can't complete this without your expert help. Okay so I started the download for the development tools from Win ADK. But I have some questions

1: I did this capture thing like 20 times before never needed the edition flag. What's special this time around ?

2. If I capture from imagex, what would be the compression settings it use ? I want the image to be as slim as possible. With dism, I use compression:maximum switch.

3. The method I mentioned in the original post for changing the theme, is it okay to do that way ? or should I take the registry road ?

4. The key that I use, I grabbed from internet and is probably OEM so that means I can't use SetupComplete.cmd This leaves me to disable the hibernation through the registry for which I would need to use the unattended to copy the profile in sysprep. I haven't done this before. Can you tell me what I need to put in the unattended to copy the temporary Admin profile to default profile please ?

Your help is highly appreciated. Thanks man.

 

Setting the edition flag sorted out the problem. Thank you very much aboddi. Without your help, I would have never known what really went wrong, much less how to sort it out.