I recently worked to correct an outstanding support issue of VMware Guest Customization Specification not joining guests to Active Directory Domains. I thought I’d share my setup so it might help others facing similar issues.
Log into the vSphere console, navigate to the Home page section
From the Home page click the Customization Specification Manager
Once in the Customization Specification Manager Click on “+” symbol to create VMware Guest Customization Specification.
Select the operating system either Windows or Linux from the drop-down on target VM operating system and Specify the name for the Customization Specification. Enter the description of the customization specification. Click on Next.
Provide your registration information and click Next.
I use the computer name of guest OS as same as the virtual machine name. It simplifies the identification of the virtual machine in the vCenter inventory. Select “Use the virtual machine name” to use the computer name as same as virtual machine name and click Next.
Enter the windows licensing information for this copy of the guest operating system; if you are using a KMS server for activation you don’t have to type a key here.
Specify the administrator password and auto-login option for the administrator account of Windows operating system. Click Next.
Select your time zone and continue.
If you need to run some commands on the first log on, put them here and when your done click Next.
On the Configure Network, you can specify the network settings for the guest operating system. Either you can use DHCP or specify the custom network settings.
To specify the custom network settings, Click on Edit “Pencil Icon”… In this section is where I specify the DNS suffix to add to the Windows operating system. Click on OK.
This allows me to communicate to a specific Active Directory Domain Service (ADDS), and include the domain suffix. Once Network settings are specified in customization specification. Click on Next.
Under Set Workgroup or Domain, choose “Windows Server Domain”, specify FQDN and specify the user account and credentials information that has permission to add a computer to the domain.
The user account is in the format of user@domain.tld
Click on Next.
Select the checkbox “Generate New Security ID (SID)” to generate a new security identity for the windows virtual machine. This option is important to generate the new SID from the source machine. Click Next.
Finally, review all the settings specified in VMware customization specification and click on Finish
Now you can Deploy Templates Using VMware Guest Customization Specification, and join the guest to your Active Directory Domain without issue.