PXE Flag Not Set
Site Server: SCCM R2 running on 2008 R2 with 2008 SQL SP1. OK, this is a new one on me. I have just deployed 350 machines on a greenfield site using PXE as the deployment method. PXE has worked just fine in that the tagets have been able to boot and the task sequence has run successfully. Some machines have then rebooted and run the task sequence again. These have been desktops which have been set to boot from NIC first. On closer inspection, the machines that have looped the task sequence fail to set the PXE flag. This has been the case for laptops as well, but have not entered the task sequence loop as they do not have the NIC card first in the boot order. I have not seen any error messages in smspxe.log that would suggest anything untoward. As far as I can tell there is no logical pattern to this. I am a bit stumped as where to look for clues. Does any one have any suggestions or pointers please? Thanks /Craigad
June 25th, 2010 1:11am

Hi Craigad, Are these problemtic computers installed with OS successfully? Make sure you have enabled HDD boot in the BIOS setting? For your convenience, I have created a workspace for you. You can upload the smspxe.log to the following link. (Please choose "Send Files to Microsoft") Workspace URL: https://sftasia.one.microsoft.com/choosetransfer.aspx?key=3dce572d-d829-4251-a9e7-5ee7d5c79f73 Password: 7XfQcV]TotNF Note: Due to differences in text formatting with various email clients, the workspace link above may appear to be broken. Please be sure to include all text between '(' and ')' when typing or copying the workspace link into your browser. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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July 1st, 2010 8:33am

Hi, does your PXE Service Point have sufficent rights on the SQL Server. I had a similar problem and resolved it after the PXE Service Point Server was in the local Admingroup of the ConfigMgr Site Server and the database. Yours, Chris
July 2nd, 2010 10:40am

I am have this same issue and can't seem to find anything about it. Only difference is my clients don't have NIC as the primary boot device set in BIOS. Also my server 2008 doesn't run R2 and I am using SQL 2005 SP3. Basically I'll advertise an OSD and set the advertisement to expire, even though I advertise it to be available to PXE it will usually kick off via the ConfigMgr client because the machine is up, then the Task Sequence will run and complete. Then later I'll come back and do a F12 boot to NIC or just reboot a machine that the advertisement had previously run on and it will automatically pick up a mandatory advertisement and run without showing the Run Task Sequences selection screen. Keep in mind that these Mandatory advertisements have always been set to expire and have already expired. In fact on at least a few occasions when I've seen this, the advertisement had expired a matter of 3-4 days in advance. When I right click on these computers and choose Clear Last PXE advertisement, it shows the last run advertisement which in the most recent 2 cases, were Advertised on 7/23/2010 with an expiration time of 7/23/2010 and well and run time dates of 7/26/2010 and 7/27/2010. And yes I've checked that no other TS are being advertised to these machines. The PXE flag must not be getting set since these are kicking off via the ConfigMgr client, correct? Is something getting stored in the PXE Service Point server's PXE cache? I've checked the settings on the PXE servers and PXE cache should expire every hour. Any idea what gives?
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July 28th, 2010 7:21pm

Just doing some more research and Google-fu and on Technet I'm reading the "Planning for PXE OS deployments..." page, and under Clear last PXE Advertisement, it mentions the following: "Selecting this option will reset the status for the last mandatory PXE advertisements for the collection or device. The most recent mandatory advertisements will be rerun on any computers or devices the advertisement has been assigned to." I'm sure this is also the case if the PXE flag never gets set, it would only make sense, right. So then my question would be, is this true for advertisements that have expiration dates as well? Do I need to delete the advertisement from my collections, or remove machines from the collections the advertisement was applied to?
July 29th, 2010 4:06am

Hello Colleagues, I just fixed this problem, by adding the machine account (<domain>\<machinename>) to the local administrators group of the site database server. So it's clear that the problem was a permissions issue. But this solution seems a bit overkill to me. Is documented what exact permissions on the (SQL) server are needed for the PXE Service Point role to function? Regards, Stephan van der PlasYou know you're an engineer when you have no life and can prove it mathematically
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March 24th, 2011 6:53pm

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