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Deploy Windows 2008 using SCCM 2007 with static IP address

John Tran — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 09:43:52 +0000

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.

John Tran — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:33:01 +0000

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

John Tran — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:43:15 +0000

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.

Free PDF Converter

John Tran — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:41:16 +0000

For those that need to convert their word documents but do not have Acrobat installed, then here is a handy website that allows you to do it without any software being installed.

PDF Converter

How to change IP address and DNS of computer from command prompt

John Tran — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:13:22 +0000

Here is the command for those who want to change the IP address and DNS of a computer via command prompt.

Command to change IP

netsh int ip set address “local area connection” static 192.168.0.101 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.254 1.

Command to change DNS

netsh int ip set dns “local area connection” static 192.168.0.254 primary

Both commands are assuming that you want to change your IP to 192.168.0.101, your default gateway is 192.168.1.254, your DNS is 192.168.0.254 and the name of the network adapter is ‘local area connection.’ You will need to change these values according to your own network.