The Realm of the Verbal Processor

Error Code 31 During Build & Capture Task Sequence

I’ve seen this a few times during Operating System Deployment engagements at clients. During a Build and Capture task sequence the TS will fail with a 80004005 exit code. Looking at the SMSTS log or in the status messages for the advertisement will show messages similar to:

Windows Setup completed with exit code 31

Exiting with code 0x80004005

Windows setup failed, code 31. The operating system reported error 2147500037: Unspecified error

Lovely. What the heck does that mean? Since we all know how helpful 80004005 is. :-)

In looking at the logs located in x:\windows\temp\smstslog\windowssetuplogs (I can’t remember which log file.) I found reference to setup not being able to import a critical driver. Now we are getting somewhere…which driver is it? A blasted Alps Touchpad driver. Not sure about you, but that does not rise to the level of “critical” to me during a completely hands off process like a task sequence.

Basically I left the default “Auto Apply Drivers” step in the B&C Task Sequence. The client had previously imported a ton of drivers…including the “critical” Alps Touchpad driver. Simply disabling the Auto Apply Drivers step in the TS let the task sequence continue. Since the B&C only runs on a virtual machine I don’t need that step anyway.

September 15, 2011 - Posted by Jarvis | ConfigMgr