Deployment Solution

Hi,

I'm trying to set-up DS 6.9 SP1 for the very first time and I'm having a couple of issues.
I'm installing DS 6.9 SP1 on a clean Windows 2003 SP2 server, although it's running on VMWare ESX server. I've read that others do this already so I assume there are no issues with that?
We plan to use the product for our HP Thin Client devices.

Anyway the install process and issues I get are as follows: -

1) Set-up an AD account to use with Altiris
2) Set-up Deployment Share on our FAS and gave the Altiris account full read/write rights to it. Users have read rights.
3) Added Altiris account to the local Admin group of the server I'm installing to.
4) I then installed DS 6.9 SP1 with custom install (so that I could set the Deployment Share on our FAS and select remote SQL Database)
5) Entered to Altiris account details
6) Selected our SQL Database and used my own credentials (so that it could create the DB)
7) Selected FreeDOS as pre-boot operating system
8) Selected PXE Server to be installed on same server
9) Selected Console to be installed on same server
10) Did not install Web Console
11) Began the installation which went fine until just before PXE Server, I think it was on Components when an error appeared.
12) Got the following error: Error creating PXE default image. You will need to create them manually using PXE Configuration.
13) Click OK and the rest of the installation completed without any errors.
14) Checked the Event Log for an further errors and found the following: -
System Log - 7000 - The SNMP Trap Service service failed to start due to the following error: The system cannot find the file specified.
Application Log - 2 - SNMP Service is not installed
15) Logged onto SQL Server and confirmed the database and tables were all created okay. Added Altiris user to the database and gave it DB Owner rights.
16) As suggested by the first error message I then opened PXE Configuration Utility and I got the following error: -
The PXE Configuration utility could not obtain access to the PXE Manager. The Altiris PXE Services may not be installed properly. Verify that the PXE Manager Service is running using the Windows Computer Management utility.
17) Checked the services and I could see PXE Manager service was running fine and there were no errors in the Event Log about this service. I did notice that PXE Server service was not running but its auto start is set to manual so I guess its not meant to be running yet anyway. However I did try running it and it started okay. I then tried PXE Configuration again but got the same error.

I have since tried un-installing and re-installing the whole Altiris product twice. Once just the same again and once by using a local Deployment share. Neither made any difference.

I've search the forums and google for the errors I've got and not found anything so wondering if I'm doing something completely wrong.

Anyone got any ideas?

Your basic system seems sound. Our servers are VMWare ESX virtuals running 2003 server. Ours are from 6.8sp1 to 6.9sp1. The 6.9sp1 is with SQLexpress 2005. PXE is on that server, but DHCP is on its own server. All use Multi driver DOS PXE. The last update (6.9sp1) gave me the same error on PXE portion of the install, but all seemed well. After installation, I always copy my most current oemsetup.inf files and drivers into the driver folders and rerun PXE conifg. It worked fine. You might check the "PXE config helper" process. That's another one that needs to run.

Knowledge Base article AKB3724 tells how to clean up a corrupted PXE installation.

Thanks for the info.

Not sure if this helps identify the issue but the PXE Manager service is constantly using 35-40% CPU and PXE Config Helper service is constantly using 20-25% CPU. Is that normal?
The other thing to note is that all the PXE related services are set to run using the Local System account. Do any of these services need access to Deployment Share and if so would they not need to use the AD account I created earlier?

Anthony Yates

Hi,

When upgrading to DS 6.9 SP1 we also got an error during the PXE server upgrade. At this point everything was up to date except the PXE files, still version 6.8...

In the axinstall.exe installation directory you'll find installer files for the PXE server/manager. When running them manually it solved my problem (pxe files up to date and pxe config manager works fine)

can you check in the pxe installation folder if the files are up to date?

Me too. As I stated in the other thread, we are running on VMWare ESX on Server2003 with DS6.91sp1. When I went from the 6.9 to the 6.9sp1 on this, I received the same errors. Again, rerunning the PXE manager and PXE server installs alone cleaned up the install. All is right with the world....well with PXE at least

I tried manually re-installing PXE Manager and Server but that didn't help.
Also un-installed PXE Server and Manager and then re-installed, but again didn't help.

I noticed that you are both upgrading from a previous version. I've been doing a complete clean install of DS 6.9 SP1, so all my files should already be up to date.

Everything with the program seems to install fine except the PXE side. PXE Images errors during creating during first install, PXE Manager and Config service consume lots of CPU, get errors opening PXE Configuration Utility saying that the Manager Service is not running even though it is.

I've installed DS 6.9 SP1 on my laptop running Virtual PC/Windows 2003 and it installed perfectly fine.

Could it be something specific with DS 6.9 SP1 when doing a clean install causing the issue? Maybe if I installed an older version it would work okay? Any ideas where I can download 6.8 or 6.9 without SP1?

Just seen that I can download old versions from the following location: -
ftp://ftp.altiris.com/Product/Deployment_Server/

So I'll try those.

Hi, I already have some issues that arose during the installation of Deployment Solution.
During the installation of Deployment Database, an error message show me with the following information:
"Setup was unable to run 'DBInstaller.exe' to create the 'eXpress' SQL database.
... Canceling setup... "
What is that? What might have happened?

Thanks for help

It sounds like you are trying to install a SQL Express 2005 over an existing db installation. There are a few things to check on the database installation: Check KB's 40221, 27262, and 30971. There was another on cleaning up any existing db installation, but I couldn't find it. It had info on cleaning files, installations, and registry entries dealing with the previous SQL installation before installing a new DB installation. Found it: KB 3541. It actually dealt with MSDE and cleaning up previous db but I have found that once a install fails with that error, all previous must be cleaned up per KB3541, then install the SQL Express, setting up the settings per the above KB articles before trying the DS install again.