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PXE and win7pese


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#1 tblo

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Posted 17 December 2015 - 07:41 PM

Using winbuilder and the win7pe_se project I have just built a PE3 (I will likely be rebuilding it a few times as certain details get ironed out, and the need to change the pxe domain settings from the lab details to the production details).

Wherever applicable I set things to run from ram (as that was mentioned, and logical, that for a pxe boot that would be needed, also set the pe ram drive to be 512 for more scratch space).

I then setup windows deployment role on my lab windows server 2012 R2, and configured the server itself to be the distribution point (or whatever their word for it was).

I then copied the boot.wim to the desktop from inside the iso file winbuilder made (desktop just to make finding it easy), and from within the windows deployment dialogue I select add boot image, and pointed it to the boot.wim and it says its an 'invalid boot image', thinking maybe something got corrupted in the copy I mounted the iso (double click, server 2012 supports iso mounting like that) and pointed the dialogue to the boot.wim in the virtual drive, and it still said invalid.

so just to be sure I pointed VMware to the iso file and told it to boot from it, which worked perfectly.

Anyone know what windows deployment is checking for validity and what I can change so it will pass?
or alternatively, another pxe solution that won't care?



#2 tblo

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Posted 20 December 2015 - 09:43 AM

No one yet seems to have an idea on this, and my searches have yeilded little, but my experimentations have revealed a bit...

 

Having winbuilder use an extracted boot.wim that I manually extracted and point win builder to that directory, while manually running dism to add some setup/server-setup/wds packages, then letting winbuilder go to town results in a PE that is only able to partially boot saying there is an error with the target folder.

 

extracting the wim file using imagex /mountrw (and later /commit /unmount) and using dism to correct the affore mentioned target error yeilds a boot.wim that boots nicely and server 2012 R2 wds pxe server will allow to be added to its available boot images. If however I correct the target error before winbuilder does its thing, or after winbuilder has run once then correct the 'target' folder and rebuild the wim then server 2012 R2 will still reject the wim file as invalid.

Speculating that the ta​rget being wrong prevents winbuilder from trimming or editing something that is part of whatever WDS is checking for.

 

furthermore I have no idea where this invalid target directory is even getting added to this, it is something like  X:\windows ~bt\windows (the first time I tried to correct it I changed it to X:\windows but upon boot same error save it now said X:\windows\windows, so I learned I must set it to X:\); but this whole tid bit is a mystery...



#3 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 20 December 2015 - 11:30 AM

No one yet seems to have an idea on this, and my searches have yeilded little, but my experimentations have revealed a bit...

 

tblo :),

IMHO the issue here is that you are vaguely referring to your environment and to your actions within it.

Noone can (or will have the time to ) guess what you are doing, how you are doing it and thus be able (hopefully) to suggest any remedy.

It is entirely possible that the issue is with some WDS incompatibility, but it could well be some "wrong" settings in either the Win7PE_SE project or in the WDS itself.

You should (could) be more explicit in describing your setup, first thing that comes to my mind is that there is a conflict between PE versions, *like*:

https://technet.micr...y/gg682187.aspx

 

:duff:

Wonko






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