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  • 1.  How to prevent auto restart in WinPE automation

    Posted Jul 04, 2012 07:08 PM

     

    Hello everyone, I am new to Altiris Deployment Solution and have managed to figure out some of the basics but had a question about the WinPE automation enviornment.  I have found that if you manually boot a workstation to WinPE when no job is waiting for it, it terminates the session and reboots after about 30 seconds.  My question is...is there a way to disable the automatic restart if no job is waiting for it?  I am aware that if the computer does not exist as an object within the altiris database it will wait for user interaction.  I am also aware of setting up a "wait" task job so you can manipulate rdeploy after the fact. What I am looking for is a possible configuration change within the WinPE or DAgent or whatever handles that portion of the automation so that one can restore an image without interacting with the altiris box at all.  As a side note, my company has also implemented Symantec Network Access Control to shoot any device that does not meet the criteria for the production network over to a neutered network (different subnet) with no access to company resources.  Thanks in advance guys for all of your help.
     
    Joel Iglesias


  • 2.  RE: How to prevent auto restart in WinPE automation
    Best Answer

    Posted Jul 05, 2012 08:43 AM

    Hi Joel,

    As you are probably aware, it is working as designed and to my knowledge, there is not a way to natively change this.

    That being said....Ian Atkin developed a handy add-on for DS that might do exactly what you need.  He called it ImageInvoker.

     

    https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/downloads/imageinvoker-version-04-client-initiated-imaging

    Give that a look and see if that helps you out.



  • 3.  RE: How to prevent auto restart in WinPE automation

    Posted Jul 05, 2012 11:26 AM

    If it is, you may want to see if there is an initial deployment job scheduled to run "reboot to production" after 30 seconds as the default initial deployment.

    By default, once in PE, we should do absolutely NOTHING if there is no job assigned.  I regularly have my PE environment stay open for days without rebooting just so I can test.

    For new computers, if you set up Initial Deployment, you will be prompted with a menu of possible jobs to select from in Automation.  This may be what you're looking for.  Image Invoker is slightly different.  New computers wll receive a menu of jobs as YOU create them and YOU select them on the Initial Deployment configuration page.  As many jobs as you want.  They'll be listed in a table, and the person sitting at the system can just select from one.

    For existing computers manually booting to Automation, no such menu exists, until the next version 7.5 due Q4 late this year.

    For Predefined computers, this doesn't work quite as well today, but in the next release, you can select the predefined computer from a list.

     

    Anyway, that should be a decent start.



  • 4.  RE: How to prevent auto restart in WinPE automation

    Posted Jul 05, 2012 12:08 PM

    Thomas,

    To clarify...in 6.x, what you are saying isn't possible.  I am assuming he is using 6.9 based on the tags on the original post.



  • 5.  RE: How to prevent auto restart in WinPE automation

    Posted Jul 06, 2012 07:01 AM

    Thanks you both very much for your input, I have been struggling with this for some time and I believe Image Invoker might just be the answer.  All I have to do now is read a bunch about how Image Invoker works to try and see it can be implemented in my work environment without stepping on any toes. Thank you very much Tom for your contribution as well.  I apologize but I did neglect to list 6.9 sp5 mr1/2 as the version in use at my company.