PXE boot machines without being in collections?

[Scott S]

Is there a way to pxe boot a machine that isn't apart of SCCM? So far the only way i've been able to PXE boot machines and image them is to put them apart of the collection where the task sequence is advertised.

 

I set the pxe service point to accept unknown computer support, but that didn't make a difference.

 

Thanks,

[anyweb]

sure there is, but you'll need to add images to WDS first (boot images and install images)

 

if they are not in sccms database they should then try to boot to wds

[Scott S]

Thanks for the reply.

 

Well the thing is, I have WDS/DHCP on a different server then my SCCM server. So currently SCCM is used to configure WDS. WDS isn't actually configured using the wizards on the WDS Server itself, so I don't get the WDS menu to add Boot and Image files to the system. When I go to Server Administrator and look at WDS it shows it's not configured since SCCM is taking care of it.

 

How would I add those boot images and install images to the WDS in this senario?

 

Also when I boot up a bare metal machine that isn't apart of SCCM it does boot to PXE. It just gets the error waiting for approval and eventually reboots itself.

 

Thanks again.

[anyweb]

you can add boot images to WDS after manually configuring it. I've done it and had both SCCM and WDS happily co-existing. The location of WDS is not important aside from the fact that your DHCP server will need to have options set to tell the pxe requests where to look, once youve configured wds you'll be able to PXE boot to it, press F12 then to see the normal Windows Deployment Services boot menu (capture-deploy-discover whatever...=)

[Scott S]

you can add boot images to WDS after manually configuring it. I've done it and had both SCCM and WDS happily co-existing. The location of WDS is not important aside from the fact that your DHCP server will need to have options set to tell the pxe requests where to look, once youve configured wds you'll be able to PXE boot to it, press F12 then to see the normal Windows Deployment Services boot menu (capture-deploy-discover whatever...=)

 

Well I got to work without manually configuring WDS. I spoke with one of the microsoft engineers and suggested if you want pxe booting available to all computers no matter what. You just advertise a task sequence to the collection "all unknown computers' and don't make the task mantitory and it will give you the option to select what task sequence you want during the boot (which will reflect a pxe boot menu) So that actually answers both of the posts I submited a few days ago. I've tested this and it works perfectly.

 

Thanks again.

[anyweb]

sorry, i assumed that when you said 'not part of SCCM' that you didn't want any SCCM functionality (including r2 support which is where unknown computer support comes from)

 

thanks for clarifying it