Virtual machine customisation fails with error “A specified parameter was not correct. spec.identity.userData.computerName”.

2 Replies

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Today I was testing some new Windows Server 2012 templates and noticed something rather odd. Basically my costomisations would cause the deployments from template to fail for no real reason. Error message that came up was:

Virtual_machine_customisation_fails_with_error_A_specified_parameter_was_not_correct._spec.identity.userData.computerName_1

Virtual_machine_customisation_fails_with_error_A_specified_parameter_was_not_correct._spec.identity.userData.computerName_2

This normally happens because of the following reason(s):

  • Computer name contains an underscore as described here -> http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2009820

  • Computer name doesn’t comply with Microsoft standards i.e. name is longer than 15 characters etc as mentioned here -> http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2009820 and here -> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/909264

    • My issue was none of the above and in a nutshell boiled down to me using only integers in virtual machine name (simple as that..)

    (Me being me) I wanted to quickly deploy the templates to check if they’re working properly so the VM ended up with a 12345 or 2324343 as a name. It turns out that’s not allowed on top of the two possible solutions I already mentioned.

    Odd one this is but whatever works!

    2 thoughts on “Virtual machine customisation fails with error “A specified parameter was not correct. spec.identity.userData.computerName”.”

    1. Frank M.

      Hi – When you say, “that’s not allowed on top of the two possible solutions…”, were you able to find documentation that says we cannot use integers as the name of a system?

    2. Tauqir

      MUST NOT USE underscores ‘_’ or dots ‘.’ use ONLY alphanumeric characters with hyphens if needed.

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