Provisioning UEFI Enabled Systems without Bare Metal

So, I tried to make a document in the Share IT, but I guess it never got approved, or got lost in the sauce, or something. So I'll just put this over here.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I would much like to be able to provision a UEFI enabled device without having to go through the headache of dealing with bare metal. It's a great feature for provisioning en masse, but for onsies and twosies, I just want to boot to my PXE rep, pull a template, and let er go.

LANDesk Does Not Support or Endorse This Method, or Any Method, of Booting to LANDesk Provisioning By Any Means Other Than The Official, Recommended Methods!

You will need:

1. A USB 2.0 capable thumbdrive with enough storage to hold your boot.wim (~400 MB, size will be dependent on the number of drivers you inject) plus the boot files (~50 MB)
2. A LANDesk PXE computer (to pull the boot wim from)
3. A 64 bit Windows installation DVD / thumbdrive / ISO (I’ve tested with Windows 8.1 x64. Other Windows versions are untested)

The steps:

1. Insert your thumbdrive you wish to turn to UEFI bootable. Let’s assume it is given the drive letter X:
2. Format the thumbdrive to Fat32 (FAT, xFAT, and NTFS is unsupported with UEFI). You may use Diskpart, Windows Drive Manger, or simply rightclick the drive in Computer. A Quick format suffices.
3. Open CMD with administrative rights. Run the following commands:

I. C:\Windows\System32> diskpart

II. DISKPART> list disk

You will see all connected HDDs, SSDs, and Flash memory drives, with a number next to them. The easiest way to recognize your thumbdrive is compare the size of all disks.

III. DISKPART> select disk #

Where # is the disk number of your thumbdrive from the listing

IV. DISKPART> list part

In almost all instances, your thumbdrive should only have one partition, but just in case…

V. DISKPART> select part #

Where # is the partition number on your thumb drive from the listing

VI. DISKPART> active

This marks the partition as bootable

*** Side note! Sometimes Windows behaves funny with USB drives in Diskpart, especially with a USB 3.0 drive or a 2.0 drive in a 3.0 port. If it tells you that there's no selected partition, run the following commands:

a.) DISKPART> clean

b.) DISKPART> create part pri

c.) DISKPART> list part

d.) DISKPART> select part #

e.) DISKPART> format fs=fat32 quick

f.) DISKPART> active

VII. DISKPART> exit

1. Create a folder inside of X: called sources. At this point, X:\sources should be the only folder in the drive.
2. Navigate to C:\Program Files\LANDesk\PXE\System\images\Boot

64 bit version of Windows that are acting as PXE servers may be located at C:\Program Files (x86)\ instead.

1. Copy boot_x64.wim to X:\sources
2. Rename boot_x64.wim to boot.wim
3. Insert / mount your Windows installation media (DVD disk, USB drive, ISO, etc)
4. Copy the following folders from the Windows installation media to the root of X:

I. boot

II. efi

1. Copy the following files from the Windows installation media to the root of X:

I. bootmgr

II. bootmgr.efi

1. Safely eject X:

Using your new 64 bit WinPE Boot Disk:

1. Plug the newly created drive into a UEFI BIOS enabled computer while it is powered off.
2. Turn the computer on and enter the one time boot menu (Your mileage may vary, with Dell’s, it is the F12 key)

*** Secure boot MUST be turned off for the USB key to recognized. Sometimes with UEFI enabled systems, the boot selector will not recognize the thumb drive, even with Secure Boot turned off. Simply powering off and rebooting back to the boot selection will fix this 9/10 times.***

1. Select the entry for the USB media.
2. Windows PE will be loaded, exactly as it would if you were booting via PXE. Once it is booted (after the “Windows is loading files” part completes and the Windows logo disappears), you may remove the thumb drive to place it in another machine.
3. When ldProvisioning.exe starts, exit it without doing anything (we need the 64 bit ldprovisioning, as the regular one will fail)
4. Open a new console window
5. Enter the following commands:

I. X:\Windows\System32> cd\

II. X:\> cd ldprovisioning

III. X:\ldprovisioning> ldprovisioning_x64.exe

1. This will enable 64 bit imaging in UEFI.
2. Select your template, sit back, relax, and never have to barebones a UEFI system again.

If you have any questions or would like to add anything, let me know!

Troubleshooting

1.) If your boot disk is unable to retrieve an IP address or is unable to connect to the core / preferred server, you will have to inject drivers for your device's NIC directly into the WIM. This involves DISM (part of the WADK). Detailed instructions here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Hh825070.aspx