Just curious, after the deployment finished (and the VM was waiting for the customization to start) did you notice if the NIC was connected or disconnected?
I am having an issue with my 2012R2 template where customization never runs or completes because after deployment, the NIC is off despite me having 'connect at power on' checked. I am trying to find out if others are able to reproduce my problem. Interestingly enough, if I do not use a customization, the NIC is connected after deployment....
deploy from template with custom specs not working - NIC becomes disconnected