Joining an Active Directory domain in the middle of a sysprep auditing

active-directorysysprepwindows 7windows-server-2008-r2

Is it possible to sysprep a Windows 7 image by installing it on a reference machine, then after entering audit mode, joining the computer to the domain. Then after I finish sysprepping, it will generalize and all specific services I've assigned to run under domain accounts will be configured correctly?

Basically one of the software packages I want to image on a standard Windows 7 install asks for service accounts. I want to assign that to a domain account, but I can't simply type in DOMAIN\user in the set up when it's not joined.

Best Answer

Yes you can.

You can join the reference machine to the domain, and assing the accounts of your service. After you join your machine again when the image is applied everything should works because the SID of the service account is exactly the same.