Deploy Windows 2008 using SCCM 2007 with static IP address
February 7, 2011 by John Tran · Leave a Comment
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM 2007) is a Microsoft management tool that allows you to deploy an operating system to a physical or virtual server in your enterprise. If you’re currently using SCCM then you will need to know all about it but if you want more information that you can visit the Microsoft’s Configuration Manager site. The site pretty much covers everything you need to know about SCCM 2007.
Now the problem I discovered with deploying an OS using SCCM 2007, is that there are a few vital steps that must be performed if you do not have DHCP enabled in your environment. What I found was that I was able to configure a static IP address when you boot using a SCCM created boot media. This screen is shown below.
However, once the image is applied and the computer reboots then the network settings are lost and the task sequence does not complete successfully. After searching through the internet for answers, I found quite a few people with this issue. Majority of the techs that came across this issue created custom scripts to prompt users or to capture the network settings during the WINPE phase. Although this was a great idea I wasn’t totally convinced that this was the only answer so I searched some more. What I found was that you can set Task Sequence Variables on a computer object residing in a collection in SCCM 2007. To do this go to the computer object in a collection, right click and select Properties. Then click on the Variables tab and shown below.
Using the following Task Sequence Variables, you will be able to configure the network settings and these will be applied when using the “Apply Network Settings” Task Sequence action in your Task Sequence.
OSDAdapter0MacAddress = MAC Address of the NIC you want to configure
OSDAdapterCount = How many NICS you want to configure (in this case just the 1)
OSDAdapter0EnableDHCP = false (make sure this is false)
OSDAdapter0IPAddressList = IP address
OSDAdapter0Subnetmask = Subnet Mask
OSDAdapter0Gateways = Gateway
OSDAdapter0DNSServerList = DNS Servers (seperate using commas if you have more then 1)
This will only work if you prepopulate the computer object in SCCM. It will not work when deploying to unknown computers. In these cases a custom script will have to be used.
WdsClient: An error occurred while obtaining an IP address from the DHCP server. Please check to ensure that there is an operational DHCP Server on this network segment.
July 17, 2009 by John Tran · 6 Comments
If you get the error following error when you boot into WinPE using Windows Deployment Services (WDS).
WdsClient: An error occurred while obtaining an IP address from the DHCP server. Please check to ensure that there is an operationgal DHCP Server on this network segment.
To resolve this issue you will need to enable spanning-tree portfast on your switch. To do so you can run the following commands on your cisco switch.
Switch1(config)#interface “interface name”
Switch1(config)#spanning-tree portfast
To enable spanning-tree portfast on all interface use the following command
Switch1(config)#spanning-tree portfast default
Note: This will enable portfast by default on all interfaces. You will have to disable portfast explicitly on switched ports eading to hubs, switches and bridges as they may create temporary bridging loops.
Adding drivers to wim file
If you’re trying to set up a boot wim file for Windows Deployment Services or creating a WIN PE boot on a USB key then you may find that you will need to install the corrent NIC drivers for it to work.
Here are some steps that you can follow if you need to inject drivers to your wim file
1. Install Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0, download link
2. Install Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK), download link
3. Once you have installed Windows Automated Installation Kit, navigate to the C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86 folder, right-click wimfltr.inf and Select Install.
4. Create a folder D:\VistaMount
5. Run cmd – command line
6. cd C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86
7. Mount wim file with the following command, imagex /mountrw “source location\wim file” 2 d:\vistamount
Note: Make sure that you use the 2 in the command to specify the second image of the boot.wim file. If you don’t, you may recieve problems with detecting the network drivers when booting into WinPE. This is a known problem with the new HP DC7900 Desktops.
8. Download the drivers from the manufacturer and extract them to D:\drivers
9. Run cmd – command line
10. cd C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools
11. peimg /inf=”driver source location\inf file” d:\vistamount
12. unmount and save changes to wim file with following command, imagex /unmount /commit d:\vistamount
Note: Make sure you use the /commit parameter to ensure that changes are saved to the wim file.