After installing Windows Server 2022 Datacenter on a new rack-mounted server, loading vendor RAID drivers, applying the latest updates, and installing monitoring agents, an administrator plans to use a standalone disk-to-disk hardware duplicator to create physical clones of the system drive for nine identical servers that will be deployed later today. Each target chassis has the same motherboard, storage controller, and firmware settings as the source. To avoid security identifier (SID) conflicts, activation errors, or other duplication problems when the clones first boot on the production network, what action should the administrator take on the reference server immediately before powering it down for cloning?
Convert the NVMe system disk from GPT to MBR so the boot record copies identically.
Execute Sysprep with the /generalize and /shutdown options to reseal the OS, then power the server off.
Disable Secure Boot in UEFI firmware so the duplicated drives will boot in legacy BIOS mode.
Install Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) and capture the server into a WIM image instead of using the disk duplicator.
Running Sysprep with the /generalize switch removes computer-specific data-including the machine SID, event-log history, and activation identifiers-so that every cloned instance generates unique values during its first boot (OOBE). This procedure is Microsoft's supported method for preparing a Windows installation that will be captured or physically duplicated. Converting the disk to MBR, disabling Secure Boot, or replacing the hardware duplicator with MDT imaging does not address duplicate SID or activation issues and therefore will not prevent the cloning problems described.
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