Deployment Solution

I am currently trialling Altiris on our thin clients.

My goal is to store the image on the server and be able to use multicasting to push it out to all our sites. (i.e. Push it to a remote site any ware in the country and have it download once on each site\ip range then from there deploy to all the thin clients on that network, this should save heaps of bandwidth)

I have installed Altiris V6.9 SP5 and everything seems to be fine. I boot up a thin client and it shows in the deployment console, however when I right click on the asset and select capture images it goes in to a reboot cycle a few times then eventually boots into windows embedded and displays an action status inside the deployment console "Unable to boot to windows automation"

I have searched the internet for an answer but nothing seems to correlate to my issue.

Could someone please help me get this running?

Thanks in advance.

Heyyy ,

Could you please check following details.

Go through Windows embedded configuration that u have created using Boot Disk creator and check whether mapped drive is F .

If it is F then edit the configuartion and change mapped drive to some higher letter say M .

Then reinstall the newer configured windows embedded partition on client and try the same execise again ..

I have not used any boot disk creator. I am just trying to capture a image that we have customised from the default image that you can download from the drivers section (or even a stock standard thin client, that just came out of the box)

The 2 drives that are mapped are C:\ and the ram disk is Z:\

Not sure if this is what you are after or not.

I am talking about "windows embedded " partition that you have installed on thin client .

Windows embeddded partition comes into play when machine boots into automation .

Please check embedded partition configuration that you have installed on thin client .

OR

Provide more information on how did you installed embedded automation partition on thin client .

I belive that it is already installed by default. If not this could be why it is not working for me.

We just take the computer the way it is shipped and install 3 programs, and remove the odd one.

Yes i think automation partition is not yet installed on the box.

Just check it using following steps.

---  Go to DS console and double click on the thin client

--- Computer properties window will open

---  On this window u will find "automation partition installed"  -- Yes or No

If it is "Automation partition installed"  -- No

then you will need to installed it on the box and then try imaging.  

OK, so I have tried to install the partition, but get told that there is not enough disk space.

This is on a machine that has just had the default HP image put on. I have not even installed our 2 programs yet.

The DC states that there is flash size 1945, and memory size 1976 so I am assuming that I need to make the main partition smaller to provide enough room..

Any ideas how I should do this?

OK I have changed the temp paths, and run again now I get a error that says "Brokered request at date\time" then I restarted the machine and ran again, and it says that it is " Installing Windows Automation partition" but there is no activity on the HDD or any network traffic passing through the adapter. the date\time stamp on the error does not change eaither.

Here is what I see in the DC - 

Thought I should include what I see in the properties

How you are trying to install windows automation partition .

There are 2 ways

1. One way is to create Windows package using Boot disk Creator and then drag it on client connected in DS console

[I always follow this way to install automation partition]

OR

2 . Got to the client machine in console --> Right click on it -> Advanced --> Installed automation partition Then

It will first create "windows automation install package" and then shows "Installing windows automation partition " in computer status

This process will take some time to reboot the client , Once the client is up after reboot and agent connect back to server go to properties and check "Automation partition installed" : Yes

Please elaborate

I am doing it the second way.

I looked for the "Boot Disk Creator" but the option is greyed out in the DC. Also I shoud have said when following the second way, that I get prompted for a pre-boot OS, and I only have one option that I select.

I am running another test on another thin client, i'll update you if I get the same thing.

I also noticed that the file that it is wishing to push to the PC is only 128MB so there is heaps of room for it oc C:\

Oh, just found the boot disk creator in the start menu :p

I have started to create one, it installed the components and says that boot disk creator is ready to use, now am I meant to run this on the server or the client?

It seems to pull in all the drivers from the server, where I belive that it should be pulling the drivers from the client...?

OK, created a boot disk, and booted from USB into the Pre-Boot Automation Enviro, and now have no idea what to do.

I still can not see how to capture into the DC program.

The PC shows as inactive in DC, so can not do it from that side, and am unsure what this preboot config is for. I am assuming that it is just windows PE used to install the network drivers ready to capture.

I dont know how u have created this WinPE automation partition .

Please check whether the configuration is present BWPKgs folder present in "Program files\eXpress" folder structure.

If it is present just you need to do following steps again

1.Connect the thin client again to your DC .

2. Go to DC and check whether thin client is shown .

3. Check DC window if it is showing  "Deployment console Thin client View" then Go to View and uncheck show thin client view checkbox (That will bring back you to normal view).

4.Now again check whether thin is visible in DC

5. Then Go to View --> Resources

6. Click on BWPKgs folder under which you will find the WinPE automation package that u have created using BDC

7.Select the appropriate package and drag it on thin client shown in Computers Pane

8. Now the package will be installed on your thin and the thin will be reboot

9.Once the thin is up go to properties and check "Automation Partition installed " : Yes

10.Now go to thin client view again (View--> Show thin client view)

11.Right Click on it and say Capture image.

12 .Now you are not supposed to do anything hear (Thin will boot into automation and imaged and then boot again to production ).

Ok, I still get not enough disk space for package error 112.

checked the enviro var and they are still pointing to c:\

Does thsi relate to my issue do you think?

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH133378

Never mind tried it on another model and same thing. not enough disk space.

Try this

Create copy file task and copy the Windows automation partition package saved at folder  BWPKgs

Then take remote control of the thin client and execute the package .

After completing installation restart the thin box and check whether Automation partition is installed Or Not.

Genius, genius, genius! That worked the charm. I copied the files over and ran it.

The first 5 times it would error on defrag, then on the 6th it just worked.

Restarted and captured the image, now I am going to try to deploy to another machine. I will install the partition the same way as before (manually).

I have another question. Do you know if I install altiris on my WDS machine, will PXE interfere with the current setup, or share the same PXE server?

Still having problems with this software. I don't understand why so much can go wrong.

I have created an image both to the server and via our old way of copying to USB stick (all our thin clients currently are installed with no HP Tools, so we will need to reimage them all once via USB, just to get to the stage where altiris is installed).

I installed the image from USB stick to a machine, and worked out that the automation partition does not install with it, requireing me to do it manually after deploying via the USB stick. I also need to disable the write filter and change the envrio var, and finally be logged in to admin. No prob's at least this works.

Now to do it the prefered way, via the DC.

If I right click and select deploy Image, I can now select the image that I have created and it reboots into winPE, once it does this it copies the files over to the local machine, then errors with "RDeploy: The embedded partition cannot be installed on this file system."

I then found a artical that told me to try to update the bios, so did that taking it from rev2 to rev4 but still the same error.

Any more ideas?

If you find the above comments usefull just mark it as solution.

I need to relook into the issue you have just mentioned in the comments above but it will be a better if you open new thread for this problem .