Silent F12 PXE boot prompt

[wells2050]

I have been looking for this for a while, and since I had a positive experience here last time, I decided to post again. Here is what I am looking to accomplish:

 

When the PC PXE boots, I do not want the user to see the prompt for hitting F12. I would like it to be silent, so they will not know about it. (I work for a school district and if I give the kids an opportunity to press F12, they will). If F12 is not pressed, the PC boots as it should. If F12 is pressed, the PC PXE boots.

 

I have tried replacing my PXEBOOT.COM file with the .n12 version, but all that does is boot the PC directly to the imaging server every time.

 

Any ideas?

[anyweb]

think outside the box !

 

what hardware are these pcs ? i know that dell's have a 'one time boot menu' which is operated by F12, and from there you can select what you want to boot to,

 

perhaps your computer clients have a one time boot menu also, thereby leaving normal boot as the default (to c:) and one time boot menu when you press the correct Fxx key

 

alternatively look at WDS pxe response settings, and set it to respond only to known client computers

 

you'd need to prestage the computer in order for WDS to continute though

 

more about that here

 

cheers

anyweb

[winkbuul]

how will you secure your installed pc's against an accidentely install when using a silent pxe??

[RGB09]

how will you secure your installed pc's against an accidentely install when using a silent pxe??

 

 

I know this is an old topic now, put you can disable PXE boot in the BIOS on most PC's if my memory serves me right.......