IPSEC service fails to start with Error 2: The system cannot find the file specified

This might be caused by one of the registry entries failure.. IPSec needs to be rebuilt to fix the issue. Follow below steps if it fixes..

 To rebuild IPSEC, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\IPsec\Policy\Local.  (In my case, the server’s registry ended before IPsec.  If this is the case, skip to step 6.)
3. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
4. Click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the subkey
5. Quit Registry Editor
6. Click Start, click Run, type regsvr32 polstore.dll, and then click OK.   

If the IPSec service fails to start, you may see the machine is not communicating with any other network, may not get the IPaddress from DHCP and etc.,

SQL Server 2008 R2 installation fails

Installation wizard says 2005 tools should be uninstalled even after uninstalling all 2005 components

This is due to some add-ons installed for SQL Server 2005.

Here is the solution I found somewhere I don't remember: (Thanks to the author and I am sharing further)

1. run Regedit

2. Check HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\ShellSEM
3. If it exists, rename "ShellSEM" to anything

4. Run SQL server 2008 installation again

VM clone error after sysprep "Windows could not finish configuring the system"

Symptom:

A VM is cloned and sysprepped. For the first boot, it will throw you an error "Windows could not finish configuring the system". How may times it will show this message, it will keep on restarting but just stays there. NOTE: Few lucky times it got fixed by itself after few restarts. So, please try 4-5 restart before proceeding with the work around. 

Cause: Might be one of the digitally signed drivers.. may be related to any of the Anti-virus drives which are not digitally signed or something I guess. 

Workaround: 

NOTE - This worked for me on Windows 2008 R2 server. TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. DON'T BLAME ME IF IT BRICKS SOMETHING

Once you see the message window on your VM console, press Shift+F10. This will bring you a command prompt. At the prompt enter the following commands one after one. 

bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS

bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ON

Now, restart the VM one more time. Once you logon to the VM, revert the changes you did above by running following commands at command prompt. 

bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions EENABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS

bcdedit.exe -set loadoptions TESTSIGNING OFF

Courtesy: Couple of articles/Forums I have googled. 

Jeff Harrison at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/f7e1a2ce-f797-4e34-ae47-529926186275

Shankar Ganesh at http://www.killertechtips.com/2009/05/05/disable-driver-signing-windows-7/

Later folks...