using SCCM 2012 beta2 in a LAB - Part 8. Deploying Windows 7 Enterprise

[anyweb]

In Part 1. of this series we Installed SCCM 2012, in Part 2 we started to configure it. In Part 3, we configed Beta 2 some more by enabling Active Directory discovery methods, adding some site system roles, configuring the computer client agent and client push settings and finally doing a manual client installation to verify it all worked, in Part 4 we looked at installing an application using Application Management and the Software Catalog and the Software Center features of SCCM 2012, and in Part 5, we added the FSP, SLP, SMP, SUP. In Part 6 we got our SCCM 2012 server ready for Deploying Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 so that we can start deploying some Windows 7 clients to enhance our LAB, then in Part 7 we created a Build and Capture Task Sequence and deployed it to our Build and Capture collection.

 

Now we will configure the Network Access Account because it is needed during the Build and Capture task sequence to access network resources (the Local System Account won't have access to these network resources and if you have not configured your Network Access Account you'll see Authentication failure 401 error messages in your SMSTS.log file).

 

In addition to configuring the Network Access Account, we'll PXE boot our Virtual Machine and observe the Build and Capture process, we will also look at how we can monitor our Build and Capture Deployment while it's happening on our SCCM 2012 server.

 

 

 

Step 1. Configure the Network Access Account

 

Perform the following on our vNext server as SMSADMIN.

 

In the ConfigMgr console, select Site Operations, Sites and right click on our P01 site, choose Software Distribution (alternatively in the ribbon click on Configure Site Components, Software Distribution)

 

 

when the Software Distribution window appears, click on the Network Access Account tab, and input your Network access account credentials, we will use the user called SCCMNAA which we created in Part 1 of this series.

 

 

click Apply

 

 

 

Step 2. Boot our Virtual Machine

 

We have already created a new VM for our Build and capture process, and now we will PXE boot it and observe the process.

 

Press F12 when prompted

 

 

the PXE boot process begins, windows is loading files...

 

 

we get prompted for the PXE password

 

 

click next, and the list of available task sequences appears

 

 

select our previously created Build and capture task sequence and click next

 

after partitioning and formatting the disc, the apply operating system step begins...

 

 

Apply Windows Settings, Apply Network Settings, Apply Device Drivers...

 

 

and it starts to Setup Windows

 

 

the next step involves rebooting the computer

 

 

which allows Windows setup to continue (adding drivers etc) before another reboot...and then setting up the Configmgr client,

 

 

followed by installing updates and then applications

 

TIP: If your applciations are not installing check the following setting in your application allow this application to be installed from the Install Application Task Sequence Action without being manually deployed

 

 

We have not created any Update deployments so nothing will happen in the Install Updates step (we'll come back to that later in this series).

 

 

After it's done with the Applications, it will continue on to another reboot

 

Tip: while you are waiting you can click on Monitoring, Deployments, select our Build and Capture Task Sequence to see an overview of the Deployment in process,

 

 

click on View Status followed by More Details to get more info about what is happening

 

 

Meanwhile, the task sequence continues by Initializing the Configuration Manager 2012 client *slow*

 

 

before doing the Prepare OS step

 

 

and finally after rebooting into WinPE, we being capturing our Windows 7 X64 SP1 image, success !

 

 

if you entered your capture account correctly in the task sequence, then it'll start scanning volume one of one

 

 

followed by the Capture itself, in the next part of this series, we'll deploy this captured image to another Virtual Machine.

 

 

job done

[johan.tingstedt]

Hrrmm.

 

 

It chews and chews during the pxe BOOT, but doesn't find the server.

Did I miss something during the configuration? Did we really setup the pxe/dhcp stuff ?

 

verify that you've setup things as described in this part

[johan.tingstedt]

 

verify that you've setup things as described in this part

 

 

I have!

[anyweb]

so what error do you see when you PXE boot and what other details do you need to share ?

[johan.tingstedt]

so what error do you see when you PXE boot and what other details do you need to share ?

 

something about not being able to find the boot file.

In my past, i've always setup our DHCP to point towards the DP.

So I've never tried this method before

[anyweb]

is the DHCP server on the same server as Configmgr or on your Domain Controller ? are they in the same vlan ?

can you post a screenshot of the failure ?

[ashorin]

Hi, i'm able to start Task sequence with no problem but during a restart

i'm getting error that windows couldn't parse or process unattend answer file

for pass [spesialize] . I'm receiving the same error when I try to install existing image as well.

So I was wondering how do I resolve this?

[seltzer]

First I would like to thank you for such a great guide. Everything so far has worked great. On step two of part 8, my computer boots into PXE and prompts me for the PXE password. After the password is entered I get error 0x80072ee2 and the computer doesn't go any further to the sequence selection. Any ideas?

[anyweb]

hmm are you deploying to virtual machines or real hardware ? sounds like a network driver issue, do you get an ip address ? can you ping the fqdn of your SCCM server ?

[seltzer]

All of them are virtual machines, including the SCCM server. The virtual machine gets an ip once it boots PXE, I confirmed it got an IP by checking DHCP server which is setup on the DC. I can ping the SCCM as well