Hey Checkyourlogs fans,

I have been updating my BigDemo Scripts which I use in all of our books and wanted to start upgrading them to Windows Server Insider 17079 this week.

Now, normally I would just use the standard Convert-WindowsImage.PS1 script to build my gold VHDx files.

It mysteriously wasn’t working for me with the Windows Server Insider ISO??

Hmm… Let’s have a look at the most non-descriptive error message ever.

Convert-WindowsImage -SourcePath F:\DCBuild_Insider\Windows_InsiderPreview_Server_17079.iso -Edition SERVERDATACENTERCORE -DiskLayout UEFI -VHDFormat VHDX -VHDPath F:\DCBuild_Insider\VMServerBaseCore.vhdx -SizeBytes 60GB -WorkingDirectory F:\DCBuild_Insider -UnattendPath F:\DCBuild_Insider\unattend1.xml -Passthru -RemoteDesktopEnable


The Property ‘Count’ cannot be found on this object. Verify that the property exists.

Now, upon researching this error message this actually means:

https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/Virtualization-Documentation/issues/185

If Convert-WindowsImage is called with an Edition string that does not match a value in the WIM file then an error is thrown. However, the message that is reported is:

ERROR : The property ‘Count’ cannot be found on this object. Verify that the property exists.

The error that should be reported is:

Requested windows Image was not found on the WIM file!

Fast forward about 5 hours of troubleshooting later…

I Stumbled upon this that the name of the Image is:

SERVERDATACENTERACORE and not SERVERDATACENTERCORE


The top install.wim is the Windows Insider 17079 build and the bottom one is the RTM of Windows Server 2016

I modified my code with the correct name a viola we are in business.

Convert-WindowsImage -SourcePath F:\DCBuild_Insider\Windows_InsiderPreview_Server_17079.iso -Edition SERVERDATACENTERACORE -DiskLayout UEFI -VHDFormat VHDX -VHDPath F:\DCBuild_Insider\VMServerBaseCore.vhdx -SizeBytes 60GB -WorkingDirectory F:\DCBuild_Insider -UnattendPath F:\DCBuild_Insider\unattend1.xml -Passthru -RemoteDesktopEnable

Hope this help you out there and happy learning.

Dave Kawula – MVP