SCCM 2012 R2 upgrade broken WDS/PXE

[bkay]

Hello Everyone,

This website has been a great resource to learn about SCCM and walks you through the entire process - thanks to all who have contributed!

 

I can normally find the answers I need in this forum, but this one has me stumped.

 

My setup is a Single Site server, Windows 2012, SCCM 2012 R2 upgraded from SP1

 

The upgrade seemed to go well, with the exception of the inability to PXE boot devices. After doing much digging and troubleshooting, the problem is with the WDS service.

 

I have turned off the PXE setttings in Server and Site System Roles, removed all Boot Images from the software library, renamed the RemoteInstall folder.

 

Confirmed that the WDS services is uninstalled, restarted.

 

Enabled the PXE settings, let SCCM do the WDS install, added back the ADK 8.1 boot images.

 

If the server is restarted after the boot images are added, the WDS server crashes. If the boot images are distributed the WDS server crashes.

 

distmgr_log.txt

 

The WDS server will stay running if no boot images are added or distributed. I have tried different boot image files (not just the ADK 8.1 ones), and have the same result. The server object itself is part of the administrators group on the server. The server has not moved OU's.

 

Any ideas other than a complete re-install?

 

Thanks!

Bryce

 

 

 

[Rocket Man]

After upgrading to R2 on two sites. One site has 10 remote PXE enabled DPs, none of them would PXE boot initially after the upgrade, but a simple restart of the WDS server from within the WDS console got them all working again.

 

Did you at least try this before you went about removing roles etc?

[bkay]

I never went into the WDS console to try restarting the service there, but did multiple machine restarts and tried restarting through the services management console.

[smorris]

I have exactly the same issue.

 

This issue has something to do with the WINPE.WIM / BOOT.WIM files that are created from the ADK 8.1 images.

 

Trying to manually create the boot.wim files by following the TechNet article "How to Customize Windows PE Boot Images to Use in Configuration Manager" http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn387582.aspx fails. The DISM command fails when adding any of the optional components required by Config Manager.

 

Rocket Man, are your sites running on Server 2012?

[Rocket Man]

Yes all remote DPs are running server 2012. After doing 3 more WDS service restarts today at the other remote DPs and imaging is working again via PXE at these 3 again also.

[Tjindarr]

I have the exact same error, have tried uninstalling PXE, WDS, ADK 8.1 installed all over again, if i look at the crash logg it seems to crash when WIMGAPI.DLL is loaded, the system32 one is version 6.3.9600.16412 and the wimgapi from ADK 8.1 released after okt 17 is 6.3.9600.16411, dont know if this matters but i read an old post about different versions of wimgapi.

 

i tried installing the old version of ADK 8.1, same error so wimgapi is probobly not the reason, does anyone have a valid solution for this becouse at the moment our deployment is not working.

I have opened a ticket with Microsoft and i hope i have a solution soon.

[Tjindarr]

just got an IM from the support guy at Microsoft, they apperently have alot of cases regarding this issue and need to Contact the Product team

[smorris]

Hi Tjindarr,

 

I've not got any resolution yet. Also have a case logged, but waiting for updates. Thanks for the info re Microsoft having a lot of reported cases. Hopefully there will be a resolution soon.

[Tjindarr]

Somehow this seems to have autoresolved itself on my ConfigMgr server. i had added 2 boot images from the installation ISO downloaded from VLSC, but the service still crashed. This morning i added a MDT x64 boot image to create a bootable USB as PXE was not working.

A couple of hours later the support guy from Microsoft sent me an IM that he wanted to take a screen of the distmg.log while he started the WDS service. i then saw that the service was started so i tested a PXE boot and it worked..?!?

 

So my setup now is 3 bootimages on PXE, 2 from installation media both x86 and x64 and one MDT x64. the once from installation media has no drivers while the one from MDT has a bunch of drives added to it. i wont be doing anything with these until i get an answer from Microsoft support about a more stable solution as i have a feeling that if i restart the server it could crash again.

 

I had also installed reporting services and restarted the server but i dont Think it is related, had Before restarted the SCCM server about 20 times.

[KrisO]

I'm having the exact same issue. I just upgraded to R2, PXe stopped responding but under Site Status and Compenent Status everything is happy. I've tried these few steps below a couple of times now to see if I can trigger a fresh install of wds and pxe. and I ran into the same issues you have where it looks to do something but for me they never started to work. Has anyone else had any luck, or recommend anything?

 

• untick the enable PXE checkbox on the distribution point. Answer yes that you want to remove the Windows Deployment service.
• remove your boot images from your distribution point
• After 5 minutes. Delete %windir%\temp
• check with server manager if you can add/remove roles on the server. If WDS is done uninstalling there is a pending boot.Reboot!!!
• check if the remoteinstall folder is located on your system. If it is delete it.
• reboot
• Add the PXE point again by checking the box on the distribution point properties. Check the distrmgr.log and see if the remoteinstall folder reappers..
• Send the boot images to the distribution points again.