Few Questions from a newer admin

[bkeefe]

Hi Folks,

 

I recently took over a small environment with about 5 servers and 250 workstations. I am somewhat familiar with SCCM 2007 and this environment uses that to image their PC's and deploy workstations.

 

I have a few questions that I could not seem to find a direct answer to:

 

Boot Images:
Since the previous boot images seem corrupt (couldn't update the images to DP's no matter what I tried), I decided to just create new ones. I removed the corrupted ones and I created both an x86 and x64 from the respective source folder (the default AIK->i386 and amd64 folders). That all went well and I can update DP's now. My question is, when I make changes to these boot images (ie add drivers), and update DP's again, it makes a copy of itself. Example, my site code is PLS, so it has PLS0001.wim and then it will go PLS0001.PLS0001.wim and so on. Is this normal?

 

If my boot image points to a source named PLS0001.wim and everytime I make a change it creates a new name, how does the source tab now where to find the updated image? I hope this makes sense, it's quite frustrating.

 

Question 2 about boot images is about NIC drivers. At what point does the image/task sequence need NIC drivers? I got to a point where booting off media it says invalid network drivers. Do I need to inject a boot image with these drivers? or can I just import them in SCCM config console?

 

RemoteInstall folder:

Last question is about the Remoteinstall folder. Before I left work today, I did the completed un-install/re-install of WDS and PXE to try and correct the PXE issue I was having, I noticed the Remoteinstall folder (specifically the SMSboot folder) was not getting updated. The server was not rebooted when WDS was installed, and I am guessing that's why? It didn't ask to be re-installed so I didn't, but now I am thinking that may correct that issue. Seems legit that PXE won't work if it's looking for the file in \SMSboot folder and cannot find it?

 

I want to thank this forum for all the wonderful articles and help. It has been an extreme help in these past few weeks trying to get my environment corrected. Almost there!

 

Brad

[anyweb]

Since the previous boot images seem corrupt (couldn't update the images to DP's no matter what I tried), I decided to just create new ones. I removed the corrupted ones and I created both an x86 and x64 from the respective source folder (the default AIK->i386 and amd64 folders). That all went well and I can update DP's now. My question is, when I make changes to these boot images (ie add drivers), and update DP's again, it makes a copy of itself. Example, my site code is PLS, so it has PLS0001.wim and then it will go PLS0001.PLS0001.wim and so on. Is this normal?

 

 

yes it's normal

 

If my boot image points to a source named PLS0001.wim and everytime I make a change it creates a new name, how does the source tab now where to find the updated image? I hope this makes sense, it's quite frustrating.

 

 

 

the data source doesn't change, it will know which image to update to your dp's but always builds those images from the original source when updating to the distribution points

Question 2 about boot images is about NIC drivers. At what point does the image/task sequence need NIC drivers? I got to a point where booting off media it says invalid network drivers. Do I need to inject a boot image with these drivers? or can I just import them in SCCM config console?

 

 

 

two places and only if needed

 

in the boot wim

in the winpe portion of the OS

 

Last question is about the Remoteinstall folder. Before I left work today, I did the completed un-install/re-install of WDS and PXE to try and correct the PXE issue I was having, I noticed the Remoteinstall folder (specifically the SMSboot folder) was not getting updated. The server was not rebooted when WDS was installed, and I am guessing that's why? It didn't ask to be re-installed so I didn't, but now I am thinking that may correct that issue. Seems legit that PXE won't work if it's looking for the file in \SMSboot folder and cannot find it?

 

 

 

start windows deployment services (the gui) and see if the service is started or not and where it refers to