Sysprep: Error with unattend answer file during setup

Problem:

Recently after running sysprep on a Windows 7 I was greeted with the message “Windows could not parse or process the unattend answer file for pass….”

I was not tring to use an unattended answer file at the time so a bit of a strange messge.

Solution:

At this point I could not get the computer to start windows properly I kept getting the message

“The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. Windows installation cannot proceed. To install Windows, click "OK" to restart the computer and then restart installation.”

To bypass the setup and get back into the computer I used the steps here

http://www.9z.com/2010/12/the-computer-restarted-unexpectedly-or-encountered-an-unexpected-error-windows-installation-cannot-p.html

After that I did a search on the C drive and found two unattend.xml files under C:\windows\panther

I deleted these and ran sysprep again and I was fine