Multiple PXE boot by same machine

[Biscuitgod]

I am a long-time Altiris user and have recently switched companies and working a place that strictly uses SCCM. I've noticed many differences that really drive me nuts about SCCM and here is one of them:

 

I want to PXE boot a machine to test my images more than once.

 

If I advertise a TS to deploy my Windows 7 image, everything's fine, but if i wish to then re-image the same machine, with the same TS Advertisment, it never kicks off and continues to boot to the HD. Is there anyway around this? It seems like i'm just sitting here spinning my wheels and not getting anything done. Now, i have figured out i can delete the computer account in SCCM, and recreate it and it'll work, but this is absolutely not acceptable with over 12000 possible machines. With Altiris, if i issue an image job to a particular machine it just does what you tell it. With SCCM, i issue an image TS, it images, but how do i then reissue it so this same machine can go again. The Advertisement is still active in the collection, so you'd think it'd just work.

 

Can anyone help me... I'm sure i'll have MANY other questions to follow about all aspects of this application. So far i am very un-impressed with it's functionality compared to Altiris.

 

Thanks

[anyweb]

well there are a number of ways of doing this, did you try to right click on the computer and clear last PXE ?, is the program rerun behaviour set to rerun if failed or never rerun ?

[Biscuitgod]

well there are a number of ways of doing this, did you try to right click on the computer and clear last PXE ?, is the program rerun behaviour set to rerun if failed or never rerun ?

 

I have tried the Clear Last PXE. This doesn't seem to work. When I select that on the specific computer, it even pops up and shows me there are no advertisements, but i clear it anyway.

 

Not sure where to find the rerun behavior at? I'll look, but need to know where to look that up at... Thanks

[Biscuitgod]

Found the Rerun Program option.. it was set to 'Never Rerun' but it was grey'd out. I found i had to make the advertisement a mandatory one to light up this section. Is there any reprocussions for setting this to 'ALWAYS rerun'??

[anyweb]

yes there is and if you take a look at the deploy 7/deploy xp/vista/windows server 2008 guides you'll see that i separate production from lab for this exact scenario

 

here's a sample of what i mean, scroll to the Schedule section

[Biscuitgod]

yes there is and if you take a look at the deploy 7/deploy xp/vista/windows server 2008 guides you'll see that i separate production from lab for this exact scenario

 

here's a sample of what i mean, scroll to the Schedule section

 

 

Thanks for the link. I'll check that out over the weekend.

 

Now, I did change the Program Run behavior. I changed it to Always run, i figured since this is a test environment anyway, it woudln't be a big deal as of right now anyways. Well my original image job worked right away but after imaging, i tried to pxe boot again, and i got the same issue. I went back to SCCM and cleared last PXE advertisement on my collection. There was my image advertisment listed. I cleared that and tried again, still no luck.. any other reason why this wouldn't let me reimage a machine.

 

Also while looking at the Clear PXE Advertisement, I noticed it showed the job active for 6 month exactly. Is there a way to change this? I never set an expire time, but it just put that in there.

 

I'm so lost with this thing.. i just don't get how i can't PXE boot more than once to a machine without re-creating the computer account in SCCM....

 

Thanks

[Biscuitgod]

still having issues here... not sure what the deal is, but i'm not happy about this software what so ever here...

 

I created a BRAND NEW advertisement, linked it to my test collection (with only my test machine in it). Still, that machine isn't seeing it because it's exiting the pxe boot...

 

WTF is going on here? I can't believe something like this can be so terribly difficult. I just want to PXE my machine when i tell it to. Why am i having this many problems doing this????

 

 

My advertisement is mandatory, set to ALWAYS rerun. This hasn't made any difference.. the ONLY way i can pxe boot and run my reimage jobs more than once is when i delete the computer and re-import it. This isn't acceptable.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated. Remember, i know the very basics about SCCM, but it doesn't really seem that difficult, so i just can't believe i can't get this figured out.

[anyweb]

verify that the machine isnt simply marked obsolete, take a look at the abortpxe thread here and you'll see what i mean, sccm can't be learnt quickly, it takes time to master, and you must be patient with it, also, what may have appeared simple in altiris can indeed be different or even hard in SCCM, you'll understand it soon enough, but you have to be patient

 

as regards not being able to pxe boot over and over, that is by design, what environment would you want to reimage computers over and over in the same day ? it's perfectly possible with SCCM but you need to understand how it all works first.

take a look at the smspxe.log file and look at the wds registry key (cache) by default with sp2 it's 60 mins of wait time.... before allowing you to reimage a box

[Biscuitgod]

verify that the machine isnt simply marked obsolete, take a look at the abortpxe thread here and you'll see what i mean, sccm can't be learnt quickly, it takes time to master, and you must be patient with it, also, what may have appeared simple in altiris can indeed be different or even hard in SCCM, you'll understand it soon enough, but you have to be patient

 

as regards not being able to pxe boot over and over, that is by design, what environment would you want to reimage computers over and over in the same day ? it's perfectly possible with SCCM but you need to understand how it all works first.

take a look at the smspxe.log file and look at the wds registry key (cache) by default with sp2 it's 60 mins of wait time.... before allowing you to reimage a box

 

I noticed that Obsolete setting but wasn't sure what that meant... You're work-around for the obsolete thing worked great! it's just too bad i have to mess with it. I suppose i can live with it since this is basically just for testing. but what happens when in Production we image a machine and maybe a month down the road a user needs to reimage for some odd reason? How do we remedy a situation like that?? The same way?

 

I have a few other questions on things i have ran into, but will create a new post for those so they have their own topics.

 

Thanks for your help