Windows : The computer restarted unexpectedly error while doing SysPrep

By | October 11, 2013

Got this error while your deployed Windows Server 2008 start up for the first time doing SysPrep?

The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. Windows installation cannot proceed. To install Windows, click “OK” to restart the computer, and then restart the installation.

Well, you can get rid of this by editing the registry and reboot. Here are the steps to proceed.

– Do not click OK on the error message window.

1. Press F10 key and a command prompt will appear.

2. Type “regedit” and then press enter.

3. Navigate through the registry to :

HKLM \ SYSTEM \ Setup \ Status \ ChildCompletion \ setup.exe

4. Set the DWORD value as 3.

– Now close the registry and reboot :

shutdown -r -t 0

I remarked sometimes that the OS won’t be performant and stable at the first boot. After the second reboot and those symptoms vanished.