stein_brian@yahoo.com

So I can't seem to get my new SCCM 2012 server to respond with an IP address to any unknown computers. Simple setup, one server for SCCM 2012 r2 fully patched. Separate sever running windows DHCP which works fine. Using IP Helpers in my switches. Please note this has nothing to do with running an OSD to the unknown computers container. This is just simply when the NIC is the first boot device, whether there is a job available or not, the computer should still obtain an IP address, realize there's no jobs, and continue to boot to the OS. If the computer is known to SCCM it gets an IP address, realizes there's no job and continues booting. If the computer is NOT known to SCCM, then it just spins on the pxe part and never gets an IP address and eventually gets the PXE-E53 no boot filename received. If I change my IP helper address and point to my older SCCM 2007 server it then gets an IP address even when unknown. same thing for my even older Altiris server. While it's not a show stopper because once I import the computer mac it then works fine, it's just really annoying. For the record I do have 'Enable unknown computer support' selected on the PXE tab of my DP. Any ideas? Thanks!

So I am not exactly sure why but all of a sudden my latest test images started working. I have tested it both using MDT litetouch to build and capture as well as my original customized way of capturing the image. In my case the only smoking guns are things I'm actually doing within the image, i.e. certain software installs, reg tweaks etc. On these latest test images I literally left off all software. So basically, install windows (win7 in my case), fully update it with all windows updates, customize profile the way I like it, run sysprep and capture the image. Once the captured wim is imported into SCCM I setup a TS to deploy it, and add in all my software packages that I need. For whatever reason it now works. One piece of software I used to put in the image was we still use an old version of Altiris and the client was always loaded into the image. While I have a hard time believing that was the issue I now leave that out of the image and deploy it as part of the TS. The last 3 days I've been able to deploy this 'golden image' to 2 different model computers.

I've been struggling with this forever and have even posted in other forums with very little luck so hoping maybe here will be different. Recently setup a new SCCM 2012 environment, fully patched. I cannot seem to get the Configuration Manager client to run when using a distribute image task sequence. Basically here is what I've tried. Setup a reference PC with Windows 7 SP1 x64 like I've been doing for years, i.e. NOT joined to a domain, very little added software installed, using a local admin user to setup some basic profile preferences. From there I have tried numerous methods to capture/create the image, all of which seem to work fine. The first method is using MDT 2013 toolkit package job ultimately using ZTIBackup.wsf script. When I use this method I manually run sysprep myself, pointing to an answer file, and shut the machine down. The 2nd method is using standard Capture Media (Cd-rom) created from the SCCM 2012 environment. Once captured I then use an 'Install existing image package' task sequence. Nothing fancy here, the usual steps, ending with the Setup Windows and Configuration Manager step. Everything runs fine, I see that last step happen in WinPE, I even see the config manager client package get downloaded, and once done it finally says the computer will restart. I've also tried via build and capture, all with the exact same results. Once it restarts the pc kicks into mini setup, does it regular installing devices, etc, reboots one last time, checks video performance, and ultimately boots to Windows. The image seems fine, it joined the domain as specified in the TS, but it never runs the config mgr client part. The smsts.log file does not appear to show me any glaring errors, except one line that says 'SMS client is not installed' and the 'Action (Setup Windows and Configuration Manager) requested a retry. But it also says 'Successfully completed the action (Setup Windows and Configuration Manager). I'm also left with the _SMSTaskSequence folder on the root of the C drive since the TS never knows it's finished and thus never deletes it. I have googled for days and can't seem to find a solution. SMSts.log file attached. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks! smsts.log