How can I fix the “The Group Policy Client service failed the sign-in” error when deploying Windows 8 with Configuration Manager 2012 R2 ?

Introduction

Deploying Windows 8 (and Windows 8.1) with Configuration Manager 2012 R2 is easy to do, here are some guides for that:-

Problem

However, you may randomly see errors after first login to Windows 8 which states

The Group Policy Client service failed the sign-in.
The universal unique identifier (UUID) type is not supported.

as shown in the screenshot below:

The Group Policy client service failed the sign in

Solution

The fix is finally available from Microsoft as detailed in the KB article here and there are two workarounds shown below:-

Workaround 1

Add a restart to the end of the task sequence list for the image deployment. Modify the System Center Configuration Manager task sequence for the image by using SMSTSPostAction shutdown /r /t 0 as the last task before completing the build.

as I’ve shown in the screenshot below

reboot as last step

Workaround 2

Separate the Group Policy service into a separate SVCHOST instance. Implement the following command in the System Center Configuration Manager task sequence to set the corresponding registry entry:

cmd /c reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\gpsvc" /v Type /t REG_DWORD /d 0x10 /f

Summary

If you get the UUID problem mentioned above use one of the two workarounds and your problem will be resolved. Thanks to Michael Niehaus for alerting us to the KB.

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