MDT 2012 and PXE BOOT

Question

A couple of years ago I configured my primary domain controller with WDS (not MDT) and would capture and push images from and to clients. Well now I have to do it again (less than 20 workstations) and decided to use MDT 2012 instead since I heard it was better.

So far:

• I've installed the WDS role (this is my secondary domain controller, I removed WDS from the primary domain controller).

• Installed MDT 2012, created a deployment share. On this Deployment share I've added Applications, Operating System, Out-of-Box Drivers, and added a Task Sequence using this tutorial HERE

• Updated Deployment Share

I know I'm missing something. WDS is installed but I haven't done anything to the settings ( I thought the point was to use MDT ). I don't plan on capturing any images, just pushing this image out and using the task sequence to update, etc...

When I try to boot PXE from a workstation, DHCP seems to give it an IP, but I get two errors:

PXE-E55: ProxyDHCP service did not reply to request on port 4011
PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM

Are remnants of my first WDS server (the primary domain controller) preventing PXE boot?

Answer 1

Your WDS server does not need to be your DHCP server also. The TechNet article ‘Managing Network Boot Programs’ shows the DHCP options you need to set (as TheFiddlerWins said in his comment), 066 and 067 will direct network booting to look at your WDS server.

You will still do all of your imaging work in MDT, but MDT uses the WDS server to network boot to the Lite Touch boot images that MDT creates. Those boot images will look to your deployment share for images and drivers. So once you have WDS setup and working, you will only need to access WDS to replace the Lite Touch boot images if you make changes such as adding storage or network drivers to those boot images, or changes to the bootstrap.ini.

Hope this helps,