Windows Vista is the first version of Windows NT to include a version of Sysprep that was independent of the hardware abstraction layer (HAL), in the "out of box" installation.

Desktop deployment is typically performed via disk cloning utility.

Some of these elements include: Sysprep seeks to solve these issues by allowing for the generation of new computer names, unique SIDs, and custom driver cache databases during the Sysprep process.

Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals created a partial alternative to Sysprep, named NewSID, in 1997.

However, after his own further analysis and research, Russinovich concluded that having duplicate SIDs is a non-issue and arranged NewSID's retirement.