WINPE fails with no task sequence assigned

[jrgonzalez_nyc]

Hello Everyone,

 

I am having a problem when trying to re-deploy an OSD task sequence to machines that have already been imaged.

 

The machines are Dell tablets and we are reusing the same NIC dongles to image them via UEFI PXE booting. I have followed the steps from this article in order to reuse the same dongles:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/configurationmgr/2015/08/27/reusing-the-same-nic-for-multiple-pxe-initiated-deployments-in-system-center-configuration-manger-osd/

 

Our OSD task sequence is deployed to the following collections: "All Unknown Computers", "All Systems", and "All Desktop Clients". Deployment settings are made available to "Only media and PXE" and Rerun behavior is set to "Always rerun program".

 

It seem that when the technician takes a new tablet out of the box since it is seen as an unknown device in CM, it gets the available TS and they can image it. The problem occurs when they try to reimage the same machine, SCCM now sees it as a known device. However, whether the device is known or unknown shouldn't it be able to see the task sequence since I have it deployed to the collections mentioned above?

 

Here is a snippet from my SMSPXE.log:

Client lookup reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" ItemKey="16793987" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID/><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification></ClientIDReply>

00:50:B6:17:6D:AA, 4C4C4544-0032-4D10-8052-B9C04F474332: device is in the database.

Client boot action reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" ItemKey="16793987" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID>GUID:62efbe3a-9224-4a5a-a2c5-63d6fb7b1190</ClientID><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification><PXEBootAction LastPXEAdvertisementID="" LastPXEAdvertisementTime="" OfferID="CM12000F" OfferIDTime="6/17/2016 10:46:00 AM" PkgID="CM100009" PackageVersion="" PackagePath="http://XX-XXX-XX.XX.XX/SMS_DP_SMSPKG$/CM100005"BootImageID="CM100005" Mandatory="0"/></ClientIDReply>

00:50:B6:17:6D:AA, 4C4C4544-0032-4D10-8052-B9C04F474332: found optional advertisement CM12000F

Looking for bootImage CM100005

Client boot action reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" ItemKey="16793987" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID>GUID:62efbe3a-9224-4a5a-a2c5-63d6fb7b1190</ClientID><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification><PXEBootAction LastPXEAdvertisementID="" LastPXEAdvertisementTime="" OfferID="CM12000F" OfferIDTime="6/17/2016 10:46:00 AM" PkgID="CM100009" PackageVersion="" PackagePath="http://XX-XXX-XX.XX.XX/SMS_DP_SMSPKG$/CM100005"BootImageID="CM100005" Mandatory="0"/></ClientIDReply>

 

I noticed that when the machine is unknown the SMSPXE.log looks like this:

Client lookup reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" ItemKey="0" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID/><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification></ClientIDReply>

00:50:B6:17:6D:7E, 4C4C4544-004D-3610-8052-CAC04F474332: device is not in the database.

Getting boot action for unknown machine: item key: 2046820353

Client boot action reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" ItemKey="2046820353" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID>e2b9e21e-4a0f-40d6-94eb-6ebf20a22d59</ClientID><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification><PXEBootAction LastPXEAdvertisementID="" LastPXEAdvertisementTime="" OfferID="CM12000F" OfferIDTime="6/17/2016 10:46:00 AM" PkgID="CM100009" PackageVersion="" PackagePath="http://XX-XXX-XX.XX.XX/SMS_DP_SMSPKG$/CM100005"BootImageID="CM100005" Mandatory="0"/></ClientIDReply>

00:50:B6:17:6D:7E, 4C4C4544-004D-3610-8052-CAC04F474332: found optional advertisement CM12000F

Looking for bootImage CM100005

Client lookup reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" ItemKey="0" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID/><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification></ClientIDReply>

00:50:B6:17:6D:75, 4C4C4544-0053-4710-8052-B8C04F474332: device is not in the database.

Getting boot action for unknown machine: item key: 2046820353

Client boot action reply: <ClientIDReply><Identification Unknown="0" ItemKey="2046820353" ServerName=""><Machine><ClientID>e2b9e21e-4a0f-40d6-94eb-6ebf20a22d59</ClientID><NetbiosName/></Machine></Identification><PXEBootAction LastPXEAdvertisementID="" LastPXEAdvertisementTime="" OfferID="CM12000F" OfferIDTime="6/17/2016 10:46:00 AM" PkgID="CM100009" PackageVersion="" PackagePath="http://XX-XXX-XX.XX.XX/SMS_DP_SMSPKG$/CM100005"BootImageID="CM100005" Mandatory="0"/></ClientIDReply>

Any ideas why it wont see the task sequence?

Thanks!

Joe

 

 

[Rocket Man]

Best thing to do is delete the account of the system in SCCM you are deploying to again and do an unknown OSD deployment(this should work in your scenario), you can name it the same NETBIOS name again.

You have MAC addresses of network adapters excluded for inventory in the reg key so if you want to refresh known systems what MAC address is SCCM deploying to? The ones you have excluded thus the reason why you cant refresh, do the above and it should work for you?

[jrgonzalez_nyc]

Rocket Man, thanks for you reply!

 

I understand that we can manually delete the resource/system that is created by SCCM and then refresh and it will work since it is unknown. It would be time consuming to go in and delete the records every time a technician uses one of these dongles to set up a computer.

 

I'm still a bit confused regarding the 2nd question you asked. If I have the MAC address of the dongles ignored by CM via the registry key, doesn't it always ignore that MAC and thus use the BIOS GUID to deploy the task sequence? I thought the device is registered with SCCM using the BIOS GUID and on future refreshes it would be a known device? Please bear with me as I am still a bit confused by this process.

 

After we image the machines using the dongle and join it to our domain, it registers in the inventory with its wireless mac. On future refresh I would imagine that it is a known device and should get task sequences that are deployed to the "All Systems" device collection?

[Rocket Man]

Hi hope this all helps: Here

 

This is the solution I used for Surface Pros and works a treat.

Only difference I used the SMSTSPOSTACTION task in WINPE portion of sequence to execute the script at login of the device as this gave me time to join our 802.1x wifi before executing the pop up script so the device can talk back to CM over wifi to remove the MAC after script is executed.

 

BTW it would be recommended not to deploy any TS out to all systems, you could be looking for trouble doing this. Create a custom collection either direct or query with the devices you want to refresh!

[thadkew]

BTW it would be recommended not to deploy any TS out to all systems, you could be looking for trouble doing this. Create a custom collection either direct or query with the devices you want to refresh!

Gotta agree with this one...

If it's deployed to all systems and a random user goes into Software Center and sees it, I can only imagine how insane it might get.

 

As far as deleting the record, if you're using MDT and the front end for that, add a button to delete the record via powershell. It's not too hard. The front end is an HTA. If you're using SCCM, you might want to develop something like this. We use it at my company and the technicians love it.

[jrgonzalez_nyc]

Thanks for the link Rocket Man.

 

I'm not sure that the associate wifi script will work for us since we dont have the machine join the domain during the task sequence and we use certificate based wireless which is group policy. So, until the machine is actually joined to the domain and it gets its policy then it gets the wifi cert.

 

Thanks for the feedback thadkew. We make the TS only available to Media and PXE so it is not available through software center. The only issue I could see here is if someone with permissions went in and set the Run behavior to Required and even then they would have to PXE boot and know the PW for our WINPE...but I see the concerns.