Hi

Have anyone experienced this error while OS provisioning machines in their enviroment?

dhcpv4 client service is stopped. shutdown flag value is 1

This happens at random stages in our deployment templates, suddently after  a restart step the client boots up to continue the install progress, but without an ip address, and therefore is in a Zombiemode.

The client cant report back that it is failed, and it cant continue.

So it just remains as active in the LDMS console.
The error is from the windows Eventlog, and i can see in the device management that the Network card is disabled in WINDOWS S very strange problem i think.

i Am running Landesk MS 9.6 SP1

Windows 7 SP1  X64 - with latest Microsoft updates until this date ( 20-01-2015)

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) replaces the older BIOS firmware interface on newer computer systems.   UEFI handles network booting in a different way than BIOS computers handle network booting.    Thus, due to the UEFI standard, the options available for booting UEFI devices differs somewhat from booting BIOS devices.

With BIOS devices the ability to Press F8 and display a PXE Boot menu with a selection of choices such as Local Boot, WinPE Boot Menu, WinPE Provisioning, etc are available.

The UEFI limitations make it so booting to a menu is not possible.

In order to send provisioning tasks to a UEFI device, they must be in the devices list and pre-scheduled prior to booting up the device.

How to Schedule provisioning tasks to UEFI devices

1. Within the Provisioning Tool, right-click the desired Provisioning template and choose "Schedule Template"

2. Target computers must be in the Devices list or be added by adding a "Bare Metal Server" record.

A "Bare Metal Server" record is simply a method of adding an entry in the Device list to represent an as yet unmanaged device.

To add Bare Metal Server entries to your devices list, follow these steps:

A. Expand the Configuration section in the Network view of the LDMS console

B. Right-click "Bare Metal Server"

C. Click "Add Devices"

D. Select a desired identifier type (typically MAC address) and then click "Add"

E. Enter a name for the computer, and the identifier (such as MAC Address)
    (Note: You can add multiple computers by entering multiple names an identifiers)

F. Click OK when finished.

3. Make sure the targeted devices are off then start scheduled provisioning template.

4. Once the scheduled task is in pending status, boot the client computer computer and press F12.

      (F12 is the default key to network boot most computers.   This may vary with some vendors)

5. From this point the Schedule task should change to an active state and you should start seeing the client device downloading the boot_x64.sdi and boot_x64.wim files and continuing into Windows PE.

Some HW models are now failing on HII in provisioning since upgrading to 9.6, we have not changed the drivers in the library, the machines I am testing are physically the same as I had prior to upgrade but now I am getting drivers failing to install. We have added preferred servers but I tested going right to the core and it still fails. Has anyone noticed any issues like this? I have tried to remove the driver files it has trouble with but then it just finds another driver from another model that matches and fails on that one. I was told by support I probably have driver files missing but I don't see how that's possible since we have not made changes to the driver library and there are multiple models being affected.

Description:

In LDMS 9.6 a new feature was added called Machine Mapping. This feature is found under Toolbox -> Distribution -> Machine Mapping.

This feature was created to make it easier to provision new systems more dynamically with less work by the administrator.

It was specifically built to utilize three template actions, Install Mapped Software, Launch Template, and Deploy Profile.

This document will give you an understanding of how Machine Mapping is used and how to set it up.

Configuration:

Open the Toolbox to Distribution and click on Machine Mapping.

This is a simple process.   You have a Source, Destination, and Days Valid.

To add a device to the Source or Destination simply drag it from the device list above to the desired area.

Days Valid is how long that mapping will function. This is useful if you need are provisioning many systems and need a specific time frame.

Uses:

To present how this can be used to benefit your environment I will give a few case studies.

Case Study #1

You need to provision new systems for different departments, accounting, sales, and marketing. Each of these departments requires different software. You could create three different templates with the different software but it is much more efficient to use Install Mapped Software and Machine Mapping.

To do this you just need to designate one template machine from each department. In the screenshot above you can see that Win8xTA is being used as the template machine for 3 other systems.

With this set every time a system is being provisioned and gets to this template action it will look at the Machine Mapping and then install the software that has been mapped, In other words if the template system was an Accounting system and it had Dynamics installed, the Install Mapped Software action would install Dynamics on the system being provisioned. If the system you are provisioning is mapped to the template system in Marketing and that has Photoshop installed, Photoshop will be installed on the new system when the action executes.

(Important: This will only work if you have set up Product to Package Mapping. How to Configure Product to Package Mapping and Install Mapped Software)

Case Study #2

You are migrating users to new systems and need to get their profiles and software moved over with minimal work.

To do this, first create the Machine Mapping for the old machine as the Source and the new machine as the Destination.
Example in the first screen shot WIN8-1X64 mapped to WIN81X64-3

Then create two provisioning templates.

First create template with Install Mapped Software and Deploy Profile actions in System Configuration.

(Be sure to set Deploy Profile to Useautomatic naming.)

Second create another template that is configured with Capture Profile and Launch Template actions.

(Be sure to set Deploy Profile to Use automatic naming.)

Select the first template created in the Launch Template action.

Finally, schedule the second template to the source system. It will capture the profile from the old machine and then launch the first template on the destination, which will then install the software from the old system and restore the profile.

(Note: There is a slight delay between the Launch Template action and the new template starting.)

(Important: Also if there is no Machine Mapping for the system and you have a Launch Template action, it will schedule the new template to itself.)

Finally enjoy the time saved from not having to move, name, or copy files,or manually installing specific software.

Hi

I have an app incorrectly installed with incorrect options. I have created a provisioning template which uninstalls, then reboots (as it will not reinstall untill rebooted), reinstalls with correct options and updates to latest patch version.

The problem is this is a business critical app used constantly by most users so I need to notify users before running anything with the option for them to defer. I have created the provisioning task which works successfully but when I schedule the task in the delivery methods it only shows options for legacy "Delivery Methods" so I created a new one with options to defer and custom messages etc but nothing happens on client machine the template just runs and completes!?

I create a TEST UI template which simply creates a directory and screenshots below but as mentioned it just runs without any notification to user? What do I need to do for this to work?????

I know in the prov template you can show UI but all this does is pop up with default provisioning screen without any prompt and just runs straight away.

I have a provisioning task which copies and runs a *.hta file that displays a message to the user on what is happening and has a proceed button on one and a finish button on another.

The task starts OK and the first HTA files loads up OK. The task waits for the user to click proceed. An uninstall takes place, the PC reboots.

After the reboot the task installs a new version of the software with correct program options. It then runs a second HTA file with a message the process has complete and once the user clicks the Finish button the tasks shuts down and completes OK.

This all works OK on x86 machines but on x64 machines I get the below issue:

The task I am using is below:

Can anyone suggest what I need to do to stop the last popup message loading in the interactive service detection??

This article describes the new features and changes in the OS Provisioning tool in LANDESK Management Suite 9.6.

The focus on changes for OS Provisioning in LDMS 9.6 has been geared towards simplifying the process.

The older "OSD" product has been removed from the product and has been fully replaced by the Provisioning product.

LANDESK Provisioning takes the previous OSD concepts and extends them even further  LANDESK Provisioning offers true end-to-end Provisioning of a device from a "Bare Metal" metal state (No Operating System installed) to completely imaged, software installed, domain joined, LANDESK Agent installed, etc.

OSD is gone?  What happens now?

There is no upgrade process for existing OSD Scripts.    It will be necessary to create provisioning templates to perform the previous imaging tasks that OSD did.  Remember, Provisioning is not just for deploying images.  It can be used to distribute software, patch systems, execute scripts, etc.

The beauty of Provisioning is that you can chain an endless array of actions together.

New!   Simplified template creation process

LDMS 9.5 and subsequent service packs simplified the Provisioning templates and consolidated previously complex actions.

LDMS 9.6 furthers this by include simple template creation "wizards" to build a template foundation.

Creating a capture job has been simplified down to 5 steps within a single dialog:

1. Select “Capture Template” under “New Template”
2. Select “Capture template”
3. Select “Capture Image”
4. Name the template and give it a description.
5. Enter image file storage location.

Similarly, LDMS 9.6 has simplified creating a Deploy Image template into a single dialog:

New!  "Smart Partitioning" actions

There are two new partitioning actions that are referred to as "Smart Partitioning" actions.

Auto Assign Partitions

• Assigns standard drive letters to OS and Boot partitions
• This action discovers the OS partition and possible separate boot partitions and automatically assigns them standard driver letters.

• Action results: 
  
  Windows 7 and higher with separate boot partition including all UEFI:

OS Partition will be mounted as C:

Boot partition will be mounted as S:

         Windows XP and Windows 7 and higher with a separate boot partition:

OS/Boot partition will be mounted as C:

Create default partitions

• Assigns the default partitions for either UEFI or BIOS based computers.
• This action creates standard partitions as recommended for Microsoft operating systems (Windows 7 and newer)
• This prepares the disk for use with ImageX or other file based imaging tools.  The action will detect UEFI and BIOS based computers and configure the partitions.  Sector based imaging tools such as ImageW do not need this action.
• OS partition will be mounted as C:
• Boot Partition will be mounted as S:

LANDESK Provisioning takes advantage of the new "self-organizing" multicast.  This and other improvements to the software distribution model provide drastically improved imaging and software deployment speeds.

New!  "Installed Mapped Software" action

LANDESK Management Suite 9.6 offers a new "smart migration" feature that allows you to use your Software License Monitoring data to install or reinstall software as part of an imaging and system migration solution.  IProducts can be linked to packages, and in turn called as a group through a single "Install Mapped Software" action.

In addition any standard LANDESK query can be created as a "product" within the Software Licensing Monitoring tool.    An example of the use of this would be if you wanted to install software on laptops only, you could create a LANDESK query that would return results for only laptops.

"Smart migration" can also be used to upgrade or change software:

Examples:

Upgrade example: Map Office® 2010 to Office® 2013

Change software example: Map iTunes® to VLC Media Player

New!  "Device Name Prompter" action

This action changes the %ldhostname% variable to what is typed in.  This is to be run before an inject script action.  When the "Device Name Prompter" action runs it will pop up a windows asking the operator to enter the desired computer nam.e

Improved!   PXE Boot option configuration

• PXE Boot options have been moved from the "Configure Services" menu.  They are now located in the OS Provisioning tool under the "Preboot" dropdown.
• Changes made to the PXE boot options take effect immediately, no need to redeploy a PXE representative.  The client makes a web service call to download the F8 PXE Boot menu options.

New!   Disconnected Provisioning

This new option allows you to deploy templates from a thumb drive.

To create, put in the USB device,  right click the template, and choose  “Create disconnected template”.    (USB thumb drive will be formatted) .  The template will deploy the image, do CTOS,  install the agent (Self-contained.exe) and attempt any other action that does not require a core connection.

With connection to the core, Distribute Software, Patch System and other core-dependent actions will succeed.

New!   "Launch Template" action

This new action is used in migration scenarios for migration from one computer to another computer.  This action utilizes machine to machine mapping.  The actions from the launched template are not included into the sections of the current template, it is run entirely just after the first template.

Improved!   Change  Changes to the "Wait" action

• You can now cancel a provisioning “Wait” action.  Previously you had to wait until the timeout, or until the file existed that the Wait action was set to wait for.
• Wait actions are often used in troubleshooting to give someone a chance to into the command prompt in Windows PE to manipulate or view the file system or registry.

Improved!   Various Enhancements

• Better resizing of Template UI
• Ability to copy and paste from template  to template.
• Multiple templates can be open simultaneously
• Defaults to Windows PE for Boot Environment and Windows for Target OS rather than "
• Auto-naming of actions
• Action name and description shows on Client UI.
• History auto-refreshes.
• Wait UI can be cancelled.

I am  having trouble getting multicast imaging to work in 9.6 SP1.  I get two different results.

I have two different templates that have the same exact steps, each has a slightly different outcome.

1. ImageW get's copied from the core to c:, then multicasted, then the template errors asking for me to insert c:\win81.tbi.  Basically, the image does not get copied to the c: drive from the preferred server.

2. ImageW get's copied from the core to C:, then multicasted, then the image get's copied, then multicasted, imaging starts, finishes, then the C: partition get's wiped and the system reboots and only has the reserved partition and no OS partition.

I cannot find a best practices document anywhere.  Does anyone have this setup and working?

Ryan.

Hi

We here found a limit in the PXE tftp server. We can only transmit the boot image to arround 50 clients at the time, the next client will recive this error:
pxe tftp: No slot is empty to process this client's request.

We are running landesk V 9.6 SP1
Is there any way you can incresse this number ?
Or is this limitation unchangeable?

This article applies to LANDESK Management Suite 9.6 SP1 and later

Information

LANDESK Management Suite 9.6 SP1 includes support for OS Provisioning clients to download vBoot related files from a PXE Server.

Now the Boot.wim file that contains the Windows PE image does not have to come directly from the Core.  A peer or preferred server can now be utilized.

The boot images are over 200 megabytes so it can be important to store the boot images on the local subnet or in a more optimal location for the client than the Core may provide.

New "Attempt Peer, "Attempt Preferred Server", and "Allow Source" radio buttons have been added to the "Boot to Managed WinPE (Virtual Boot)" selection for the "Reboot/Shutdown" Provisioning Action.  Note: Downloading of the boot.wim from Preferred Server or Peer at this time only applies to Vboot (Virtual Boot).  It does not apply to PXE boot.

This eliminates the need for the clients to go back to the core to download the 200+ megabytes of support files in order to virtual boot.

In order for the vboot files to be accessible to the clients, the proper web share must be configured on the Preferred Server.

Resolution

Attached to this article is a .ZIP file Containing the following:

• Deploy PXE Rep and Configure IIS.ldms  (Package Bundle)
• ps-pxe-setup.bat

Steps to import and configure package bundle.

1. Download the attached PreferredServerWithPxeHostVboot.zip file
2. Unzip the downloaded .zip file to a desired location on the core server.
3. Open the Distribution Packages tool in the LANDESK Management Suite console.
4. Right click "My Packages" and select "Import"
5. Browse to the location where the .ZIP file was uncompressed to.
6. Double click the Deploy PXE Rep and Configure IIS.ldms file.
7. This will import a package bundle into the LANDESK Management Suite console under "My Packages"
   Click here for more information about Package Bundles.
8. Within this bundle you will find a package called Configure Preferred Server to host vboot files.
9. In addition this bundle contains the default PXE Representative Deployment package.
10. Copy the ps-pxe-setup.bat file to your regular software distribution share.
11. Modify the properties of the Configure Preferred Server to host vboot files package for your environment

          a. Modify the server name under the Package Information section to reflect the proper server name for your package share

          b. Under the Additional Files section browse to the location where you have copied the ps-pxe-setup.bat file and add it as an additional file
              (By default in the imported package this defaults to http://coreservername/ldlogon.

Scenarios for distributing package bundle or only the distribution package:

Scenario 1:

• PXE Representative is already installed on the Preferred Server

    In this instance, you can simply select the package Configure Preferred Server to host vboot files, right-click and select "Create scheduled task".

Scenario 2:

• PXE Representative is not installed on the Preferred Server and you want to configure IIS to host the vboot files

          In this instance, right-click the package bundle called "Deploy PXE Rep and Configure IIS" and select "Create Scheduled Task".

     This will first configure install the PXE Representative and then configure the Preferred Package Server to host the vboot files in a Web Application called "landesk" and a virtual directory below that called "vboot"
     This virtual directory points to the following physical path:

"%programfiles(x86)%"\landesk\pxe\system\image\boot"

Has anybody succeeded in using Profile migration in LDMS 9.6 SP1 directly from WXP to Windows 8.x? As far as I know it seems there are some changes in the Windows 8 architecture that impedes a direct profile migration from WXP to W8, and the recommended path to migrate the WXP profile is first migrate to a W7 machine and afterwards to a W8.x box.

If anybody have any hands on experience on it and would like to comment, I would really appreciate the input.

Thanks!

As per the LDMS 9.6 SP1 help file, there are two provisioning actions for device profile management:

Capture Profile and deploy profile:

Neither in the System Migration nor in the System configuration exists any of this profile actions:

Any ideas of the whereabouts of the profile migration tool in LDMS 9.6 SP1?

Hello,

We're on Landesk 9.5 SP2 and have a weird issue during provisioning.  What we're seeing on some models is that after running CTOS, Landesk doesn't wait for the first startup(after sysprep) to finish.  It just keeps moving on to the next tasks as soon as the network drivers are installed.

Our images are sysprepped and captured as TBI files.  Our provisioning tasks removes the disk partitions, deploys the image, run HII, then CTOS, and then supposed to run some more tasks after it starts up and auto logs into an administrator Windows account.  But it's not waiting for the first startup to finish.  I can see by refreshing the Landesk task that it moves onto the System Configuration section even before all the drivers have finished installing and whatever it is doing is interrupting that first startup, causing it to fail with 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 the installation."

Restarting doesn't help.

We've now added Wait 300 seconds as the first task in the System Configuration section as a workaround so Windows can finish and reboot.  Has anyone else seen this happening in their environment?  Our call to Landesk support ended up with them saying the same thing - just add a wait time.  We didn't have this issue in Landesk 9.0.  It always waited until after the first startup to finish and reboot before continuing any tasks,.

Thanks,

Peggy

I attempted to capture an image from a machine, that was turned on and available for an extended amount of time. I monitored the progress during the process and received a return code error: 18581, Ping: no response from target within specified time. When I created the task to capture the image, I was on the server and verified that the target device was turned on. I was wandering, could it be possible that the device was turned off?

Can I test OS Provisioning on WM workstation environment?

I did tried to capture the Win7 OS, after run the sysprep, system restart but then after that client didn't get the IP Address with error "Error: PXE-E53: No boot filename received".

Anyone can help on this, what is the configuration needed for connection type in VM? (bridge, host-only, NAT..)

I have DHCP installed together with LDMS, but seems like IP didn't assign the client.

Thanks.

We've been using the profile backup and restore features in LDMS for quite a while and it has been working well for us until we updated to 9.6.  How this has been done till now is that if someone needs to replace a computer or reimage an existing one they run a backup provisioning task, then reimage the computer, and then run a restore provisioning task to restore profiles.  The backup was placed in a network share under the computer name, so as long as they were using the same computer name it would grab the correct restore and put it back.  After the 9.6 update it still backs up the profiles using the computer name, but it appends the computer ID to the end of the file as well.  So where before the file was <COMPNAME>.sma, it is now <COMPNAME>-prov<COMPID>.sma.  The problem with the is that when the computer is replaced it gets a new computer ID and looks for the backup filed named with the new computer ID.  We can look up the new computer ID and rename the file with it and it works fine, but I'd like to change it so that it doesn't append the computer ID so we don't have to do that.  For the life of me I can't find where to do this.  Does anyone know where to do this, or is there a new way that I can use to do this without the manual step of changing that computer ID?

Thanks!

- Bryan

Has anything successfully PXE booted their Surface Pro 3?

Surface Pro 3 - all updates

Official MS Surface Ethernet adapter

PXE Rep on same subnet (confirmed working with other computers)

When I attempt, I hold down volume down, tap power. It goes into PXE mode, then release volume down when Surface logo pops up. It then states it's looking for IP over IPv4, then switches to looking for IP over IPv6, then boots into Windows.

I've read elsewhere it will say to press enter if you want to boot into Windows PE, but I never get that.

I've tried turning safeboot off, no luck

Any help would be appreciated. .

Is there a way to add HP to the HII driver download as I am only seeing Dell? Should I be using the HP Client Driver Download, what is the difference?

According to this: http://help.landesk.com/Topic/Index/ENU/LDMS/9.5/Content/Windows/rba_c_edit-public.htm

A tool's Public group is visible to all users. Items in the public group are read-only, unless you have the "Edit public" right. Users that have "Edit public" rights on a feature can only edit public items for that feature. Other public items will be read-only. Read-only items are still useful, since users can copy those items to the "My ..." tree group and edit them there.

I have not found this to be the case for OS Provisioning.  The goal is to have locked down public templates, but allow users to copy them to their private templates and edit/tweak them.

LANDesk 9.5 SP2.

Hi all,

Landesk newbie here, currently experimenting with OS Provisioning.

I am trying to get a Dell Optiplex 3020 to install its video driver, but what I am finding is that the driver is being UN-installed as part of the process and I am ending up with the standard VGA driver.

I have tried assigning both the .inf and driver package, but it always seems to revert back to the standard VGA adapter.

I even tried installing the setup.exe for the driver package as part of the system configuration phase of provision, but it fails and just displays a red cross error windows.  If I run the setup.exe manually, it works without a problem.

I am not sure if it matters, but the image I am using already contains the Optiplex 3020 drivers, so its a bit strange the way it decided to uninstall it and default back to the standard VGA adapter.

Any ideas?